The Arrangement 4 (The Arrangement 4)

The corner of my mouth pulls up. It’s a lame smile, the kind that covers how stupid I feel. “I’m working.” And not getting paid, because I’m an idiot and threw all my money back at Sean. Why did I do that?

I push the thought away, knowing that if I was given the chance for a do-over, I’d repeat the entire night just as it was. Some kind of resolve swirls in my stomach and I feel it creep through my body. I won’t live my life halfway. That’s why I’d do it all over again. That’s why I’m a moron. I’d tell Sean that I loved him, that he scares me to death, and then I’d stand there and wait for him to reject me. Maybe I’ve got a martyr complex. I rub my fingers against my temples, trying to fight off the headache that’s closing around my brain like a vice.

Marty mixes something together. I write down the quantities on my sheet. After a moment, he says, “Ah. Do you know what you’re doing, yet?” Marty doesn’t look at me. His hands have a slight tremor, or maybe I just imagine it.

I jot down the next answer and say, “No. I’ve been demoted. So it shouldn’t be anything major. Probably a date or something.” I tick off a few more things on the sheet. I’m not sure how much Marty knows. Mel filled him in at least a little bit, but he hasn’t spoken to me about it.

Marty doesn’t look up at me. Maybe it’s me, but he seems really tense. His fingers wrap around a beaker and he holds it too tight. The glass shatters in his hand. I jump from my seat at the same time everyone in the class looks up. Marty’s fingers uncurl one by one. Streams of blood drip from his palm. Without thinking, I grab my sweater and pull it over my head so that I’m only wearing my tank top and jeans. I take the sweater and brush away the glass that’s sticking to the blood on his hand. I grip his wrist tightly and pull his hand up over his heart. Marty watches me, his dark eyes don’t leave my face. I don’t think. I just react. There’s no TA, no prof. I look around the room, but no one offers to help.

I tug Marty away from the lab table, and say, “I’m taking him to the health office. I’ll be back to clean that up.” No one answers. They watch me lead Marty out of the room.

Marty’s eyes are on my hand, watching my hold on his wrist. He swallows hard, like he might faint. I grin at him, suddenly worried about what to do if he does pass out. Marty is way too big for me to carry to the nurse. A hysterical image of me dragging the giant guy by his ankles, through the grass, all the way across campus, pops up in my mind.

I smile and glance at him. “You’re not going to pass out, are you? Because I don’t think I can carry you. I’ll have to drag you to the nurse’s office, and I’ll probably ruin that shirt you love so much…maybe even nag your head around.” I grin at him, but Marty still looks at me with a super weird expression.

We walk down the hallway and I’m trying to hold his wrist up by his shoulder. My sweater is turning red. It’s wrapped around his hand. Damn, that’s a lot of blood. He must have continued to squeeze the glass after it shattered.

Marty blinks a few times and gets the wry smile on his face that he’s usually wearing. He pulls his wrist free from my grip. “I can do that. I’m not going to pass out, either, so stop thinking about rolling me down that hill by the cafeteria.”

I laugh nervously. There’s something about the look in Marty’s eye, the way he won’t meet my gaze for more than a second. Marty stops at the exterior door at the end of the hall. I push it open and we walk outside. Glancing in the direction of the hill, I say, “We should do that anyway. I mean, when’s the last time you rolled down a hill just for the fun of it?”

“When I was five.” He smirks. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s been too long. If I wasn’t hemorrhaging, I’d make you do it now, but alas, I’ll have to take a rain check.”

“Alas?” I tease. “Really?”

Marty shrugs. “Sure, why not? I think I may speak in medieval talk all day tomorrow. I’ll make sure to raise my hand in each class so I get called on. The professors love it when I do that. A few weeks ago I talked like an 80’s dude all day. They loved that.” Marty blinks hard and grits his teeth. “I think there’s glass in my hand.”

“Yeah, there is. Don’t squeeze it!” I snap at him and make him hold his hand up by his shoulder. His shirt is getting a red blot. The cut must be deeper than it looked. I want to scold him. This seems so stupid, so unusual for him. It almost seems like he did it on purpose. “What made you do that, anyway? This isn’t like you.” It’s not like Marty at all. He’s normally meticulous to the extreme. Breaking a glass in his hand was the strangest thing he could do, shy of eating it.

Marty doesn’t look over at me, works his jaw and stares straight ahead. “I don’t know. It just broke.”

Smiling, I say, “Glass doesn’t just break—”

“Well, it did. Damn, Avery. Back off. Shit breaks sometimes.” Marty keeps walking, taking his long strides, but I stop. He’s never spoken to me like that before. Marty is always all gossip and smiles. He never raises his voice. If he swears, it’s for drama. He’s never sounded like that before. I find myself standing still and my feet won’t move.

After a few paces Marty stops. Looking at the dead grass beneath his shoes, he says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” His voice trails off. Lifting his gaze slowly, Marty looks at me. There’s something there, something that doesn’t make sense. He’s looking at me with this raw expression on his face, like I was the one who shoved the broken beaker into his hand and made him bleed.

“It’s been a rough couple of days.” He smiles at me and whatever I thought I saw is gone, concealed behind the mask of smiles and laughter. “I’ll take care of this on my own. If you could go back and grab my books, that’d be great. I’ll get them from you at breakfast, okay?” Although his tone makes it sound like he’s asking me, I know he isn’t. For some reason Marty doesn’t want me around right now.

Confused, I nod. I wonder what I did that bothered him like this. I can’t think of anything, but I don’t press him. “Sure. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll finish up the work and turn it in, too. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Marty nods curtly. He turns and walks away without looking back.

CHAPTER 6

The night seems to take forever. It seems like the sun will never rise. I get up before dawn. I can’t sleep anyway. I pull on jeans and a sweatshirt.

As I yank my hair back into a sloppy ponytail, Amber stirs. She groans, “Where are you going, freak? It’s not even 6:00am.”

“Go back to bed, Skankzilla.” I glance at her. Amber isn’t really awake. I doubt she’ll even remember talking to me. I yank on my sneakers as she rolls back over and disappears under her covers. I wish I could sleep like that, but I can’t. I hardly sleep at all anymore. There are too many thoughts racing through my head, too many memories that flash just as I close my eyes. My body aches, tired from lack of sleep—tired from life.

Grabbing my wallet, I shove it in my back pocket, take my book bag, and fish my keys out of my purse. I walk down the hall alone. No one is awake. The kids that stay up forever are passed out somewhere. The only sound I hear is the hum of the florescent lights overhead. Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I run down the flights of stairs, and push open the door.

Frigid air blasts me in the face. It feels like I walked into a freezer. I welcome the onslaught of sensations, the way the air pricks my skin, stinging it. It reminds me that I’m alive and I need that right now, I need that today.

After getting my car started, I drive to the beach. I’m not searching for the lost necklace today. That’s not what this is about. I need to hear the waves and feel the sand. I need the peace that eludes me and I know that I can find it there, despite everything that’s happened to me.

The roads are fairly empty once I hit Ocean Parkway. No one goes to the beach this early, not when it’s freezing outside. I shiver in my car, as I drive along, watching sea and sand fly by my window. It isn’t until I pull into Field 5 and step out of my car that I feel like I can relax a little. It’s too cold. I know I can’t stay long, but I can’t shake the crushing grief. It snuck up on me in the middle of the night and wouldn’t let go. For some reason, sitting and watching the waves makes me feel better. This is my security blanket, the one thing that makes me feel better even on the worst days.

I walk onto the sand and head toward the water. Glancing up and down the beach, I see no one. Seagulls screech overhead and fly away when they see I have no food. I sit on the dry sand and stare out at the waves. The sea is smooth today, like a sheet of black glass. It laps at the shore, almost hugging it as if they were friends. Solace finds me and an unexplainable inner-warmth swirls within my stomach.

Everything will be okay.

I stare, unblinking at the sea, allowing the wind to chill my skin until it’s numb. I wrap my arms around my knees and pull them to my chest, locking my fingers. I breathe, and blink. Sometimes it’s the little things that help me get through the big things. Taking one moment at a time, one breath at a time. It seems manageable, even when my life is not.

The sun is creeping over the horizon, lazily spilling orange and pink streaks across the sky. It isn’t until the sun is halfway up that I see someone dressed in a heavy coat down the beach. They’re standing so far away that I can’t see their face. The man is speck on the horizon, a black dot in a warm coat.

My throat tightens. I react to him. I know it’s him. I sense it. The wind ruffles his dark hair. The man turns his head as if he can feel my gaze. My heart beats harder. I wish it would still. I wish Sean didn’t make me respond this way.

I ignore him. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s some other guy. I can hope. My tongue presses against the back of my teeth as I lock my jaw. I try to relax and ignore the man, but I can’t. I stare at the slow waves and the next time I look down the beach, the man is gone. The tension lining my spine softens and I breathe in deeply.