Authors: Tabitha Freeman
The movie we saw t
hat night was a comedy, and the
witty humor reminded me of Tyson. I tried so hard to contain myself, but halfway through the film, I began to cry silently. Being that it was so dark in the theater, I prayed that no one would notice. However, I was surprised when a hand rested over mine. I looked over and Henry gave me a sad smile. I couldn’t say anything…but I really didn’t need to. For the
first time since Tyson had died,
si
nce everything I’d gone through,
it was as if someone finally
understood
.
Henry looked back at the screen then, removing his hand from mine, as if nothing had ever happened.
Later that night, just before lights out time, I walked across the hall to Henry’s room and knocked softly on his door. He opened it and looked surprised to see me standing there.
“Hey, Ava,” he said, yawning. “What’s up?”
“Oh, sorry,” I mumbled. “Were you sleeping?”
“No, no, just reading,” he replied. “Come in.”
I walked past him into the room. I got straight to the point.
“About earlier
—
” I began, but he cut me off.
“Don’t mention it,” he said.
“No, I want to,” I went on
. “I, uh, thanks, Henry.” He nodded.
“It’s okay to be sad sometimes,” he said. “It’s natural in a place like this.”
“It’s not sometimes,” I whispered, looking away as I felt tears forming in my eyes. “It’s
all the
time
.”
Henry didn’t reply. Instead, he stepped forward and put his arms around me. I was shocked at this and at first, my entire body stiffened.
“Being sad isn’t so bad, Ava,” Henry murmured, patting my hair. “At least you’re
feeling
something, you know?”
My body relaxed somewhat then and I just let him hold me.
For
that split second, I could
just breathe
.
Suddenly, the door flung open. Henry and I both stepped away from each other and looked to see Aurelia standing there, her arms folded across her chest and a wide smirk beneath the abundance of newly dyed orange hair. Shakespeare was standing behind her.
“Well, well, what’s going on in here?” Aurelia prompted. “Henry, I always knew you were a swinger.”
“Piss off, Aurelia,” Henry said and walked over to his bed, sitting down.
“I told you, Shakespeare,” she went on. “Your new little girlfriend is into your best buddy here.” She reached back and patted him on the cheek. He violently slapped her hand away and walked off. She looked back at us and giggled before walking away as well.
I looked over at Henry, who sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him.
“For what?” he asked.
“I don’t like to be touched,” I admitted. “Only one person ever had that right to touch me…and he’s gone. But you. I never had a brother…or a father for very long.”
“I can’t be a father to you, Ava,” Henry told me, with a small smile. “Or a brother. But there are stronger things in life than blood that ties one human being to the next.”
“I haven’t felt like anyone understood what I was going through,” I said. “Until tonight. I saw it in your eyes that you…
get it
.”
Henry didn’t reply, but just smiled kindly instead.
“Why are you here, Henry?” I blurted out. He just shook his head.
“Another story for another day, Ava,” he replied. “It’s late. You should get to bed.”
“Thank yo
—
” I started to say again, but Henry held up his hand.
“Good night, Ava,” he said. I nodded and walked to the door.
“When I am dead and rotted, I hope that people will say I was a compassionate man,” I heard him say. I turned around.
“In separateness lies the world’s great misery,” I quoted. “In compassion lies the world’s true strength.”
Henry smiled.
“Buddha?” he asked. “There are still more surprises in you yet, Ava Darton.”
“Goodnight,” I said, with a smile and left the room.
The next month went by so slowly, that I was almost certain time had just stopped altogether. It
was terribly uneventful, and even Aurelia managed to stay out of my way. The little incident involving Henry and I in his bedroom had blown over quickly and Shakespeare just acted like it’d never happened. Aurelia, surprisingly, didn’t spawn a nasty rumor, let alone speak a word of it.
I still hadn’t heard anything from my mother, though I did expect to see her on the day of my evaluation.
When that sixty-day evaluation finally came, I was up bright and early, eager to get it over and done with. I was ready to get the hell out of this place and I just knew Julianne was going to let me go home.
I just knew it
.
At four-thirty, I went into Julianne’s office as usual, and took a seat. She wasn’t there yet, so I took the opportunity to look in her fridge for my typical large glass of chocolate milk. However, there was
no
chocolate milk in the fridge. This left me with an overwhelming feeling of…well, sadness. I sat back down in my comfy chair, and after ten minutes of Julianne still not appearing, I burst into tears. I got this way sometimes. Little things seemed to build up into mountains and made my mind wander to thoughts of Tyson. I put my head in my hands and just let the tears come. This was awful. If Julianne came in and saw me this way, she surely wouldn’t let me go home.
Just then, I heard the door open and close behind me.
Oh great
, I thought.
There’s Julianne. What’s she going to say when she sees me crying? I’ll tell her I didn’t take my medication today. Yeah, that’s what I’ll say. She won’t base my
well-being
on that…
“Erm, are you all right?”
Wait a minute. That wasn’t Julianne’s voice. I turned around in my chair and found myself facing a tall, slender boy with a crop of dark, unruly curls on his head and a confused frown on his lips.
“Who are you?” I demanded. Who dared come in Julianne’s office during
my
time? Worse yet, during my very important evaluation.
“I could ask you the same,” he
replied evenly, cocking his head to the side
. “Are you the new secretary?”
I was surprised both a
t the question and his foreign accent.
“No,” I answered. “I’m…you tell me who you are.” He sighed and walked past me. I noticed for the first time that there was something in his hand.
It was a gallon of chocolate milk.
He went to the fridge and put it inside.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked
him, raising my right eyebrow.
“I made it,” he replied, and I detected a hint of slight irritation in his voice.
“Oh,” I said, as the realization hit me then. “You’re Julianne’s son, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am,” he replied, smiling slightly. “What gave it away?”
“The chocolate milk,” I said. “Julianne tells me you make it.”
“Do you like it?” He asked. I couldn’t help but smile myself.
“It’s wonderful,” I told him.
“Well, thank you,” he said graciously, with a nod of his head.
“What’s your name?” I asked him then. Julianne had never told me.
“Conner,” he said, coming over and extending his hand. I shook it.
“You don’t sound like her,” I noticed.
“Pardon me?”
“Your accent,” I said. “It’s…not American, is it?”
“No, not quite,” he replied, with a chuckle. “I was raised in England, and I live with my fa
ther’s parents year-round there.
I’ve just graduated from the university, so I’m taking a year here to be with my Mum and Dad.”
“How interesting,” I mused. “You do resemble your mom, though.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” he said, a sparkle crossing into his dark green eyes then. “So, yo
u’re not the new secretary, I suppose
?”
“No,” I replied. “I’m…um, I’m a patient of your mother’s actually.” My voice became very quiet and I couldn’t really look him in the face anymore.
“Oh,” he said, nodding, and his tone didn’t change at all, as if it didn’t matter that I was a nutcase.
“I’ve been waiting for almost half an hour for Julianne,” I told him. “I come here four times a week and she’s never late. Do you know where she is?”
“Yeah, she’s just picking up some medicine for my dad,” Conner told me. “He got sick on the plane ride back from England last week and it’s turned into a nasty stomach virus.”
“Julianne went on her family vacation to England?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah, but she flew back before me and Dad did,” he said. “Somet
hing important came up here.”
“Oh, no
,” I muttered. “I had no idea…”
“What’s that?” Conner asked, puzzled.
“Oh, nothing,” I recovered, quickly. Then, the door opened and Julianne rushed in.
“Sorry I’m late, Ava, I—”
She began, and then stopped when she saw Conner. “Oh, hi, Conner, honey. What are you doing here?”
“Just dropping off some chocolate milk,” he said, giving her a hug and a quick peck on the cheek.
“Why, thank you, son,” Julianne said, smiling. “So, I see you two have met. Wonderful. Ava’s always been curious as to who makes that magical chocolate milk, haven’t you, Ava?” I nodded.
“I’m sorry about your vacation,” I said suddenly, avoiding her eyes. “I-I didn’t know you were going out of the country…”
“Ava, we’ve been through this,” Julianne said gently. “It’
s fine. You needed me back here,
for both my therapeutic and medical help. You’re not my first patient to do that with pills, you know.”
Great, w
hy’d she have to say that in front of…I glanced at Conner, who was now staring at me, his eyes wider than before.
“Pills?” he said aloud. “Wait a minute. You’re…you’re ‘Sylvia’?” I stared at him.
“No, I’m Ava,” I said, a little huffily. “Seriously, what is it with everyone calling me Sylvia around here? I don’t
—
”
“Sylvia Plath,” Conner replied, before Julianne could get a word in. “You know, the famous poet who tried to kill herself three times? She popped a whole bottle of sleeping pills the sec
ond time, like—”
But he stopped. Julianne was giving him a look.
“Like me,” I finished, calmly. “Just like
me
.”
There was a minute of extremely awkward silence. Then, Julianne spoke up, in a rather unusually loud voice,
“Conner, thanks for coming by! But now, I’ve got an evaluation w
ith Ava, so you should probably go.
”
“See you, Mum,” he replied, going quickly to the door. He turned slightly as he opened it and looked at me. “Nice to meet you…
Ava
.”
I just nodded in reply and then he left.
“I’m sorry
about that, Ava,” Julianne apologized.
“Do you talk about me with your family?” I asked her, feeling betrayed. “How else could your son know about me?”
“I give them the bare minimum details about my work,” she hastily explained. “They don’t know all about you, Ava, so don’t get worked up, all right? I had to tell them something when I had to rush off from England, didn’t I? I couldn’t lie to them. They’re my family.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so upset…anyway, it doesn’t matter. I just want to get this evaluation through with so I can go home.” Julianne glanced away then, a distressed look crossing over her face.
“Yes, about that, Ava,” she said, with a heavy sigh.
“I am going home, right?” I blurted out, leaning forward in my chair. “You can’t make me stay here any longer, Julianne! Please, you are letting me go, aren’t you?” She didn’t answer right away, which was really answer enough for me.
“The thing is,” she said slowly. “You’re progress hasn’t been very sharp, Ava.”
“What?” I breathed. “What have I done wrong? I’ve been perfect since I’ve been here!”
“All right,” Julianne said tiredly. “For instance, your physical health is still in ridiculous condition. You’re fifteen pounds underweight, and as far as I can tell, those dark circles under your eyes indicate an incredible lack of sleep. You
never
sleep, Ava.”