Finding Me (7 page)

Chicken pot pie is our family’s traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and although I was glad to not have a traditional meal on Thanksgiving with Fitz’s family, I’m even more glad to have the comforting aroma and taste of my mom’s chicken pot pie.

“Ace, do you want some more bread?” Savannah asks, lifting the bread basket and tilting it in my direction. I think I’ve already had this same question posed to me nine other times.

“I’m good thanks.”

“How about some more fried apples?” my mom asks, doing as Savannah had and reaching for the bowl in front of her.

I try to think of a polite way to tell them all to stop bothering me about eating when a glint catches my eye with my mom’s movement. My hand snatches hers and before I realize what I’m doing, I’m gripping her hand too tightly. Bile rises in my throat, forcing me to swallow painfully.

“We were going to tell you all tonight,” she begins. Her hand grows rigid and she attempts to slip her fingers from my hold. I squeeze tighter. “We wanted you to all find out together.”

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” I shout, dropping her hand and retracting mine because I don’t want to touch her. I don’t even want to
look
at her. I shove my chair back and stand up, not caring what the others are doing in reaction.

“Harper Jo, sit down,” my mom orders, her voice louder than I’ve heard it in years, possibly ever.

I keep walking.

Her quick footsteps follow me. I know that it’s her because of the sound of her heels. My mom has always worn shoes to dinner, and ninety percent of her shoe closet consists of high heels, and right now this fact annoys the hell out of me.

I turn to face her when I reach the kitchen. My mouth opens, preparing to let loose on the anger fueling me, but she beats me to it. “You get back in there this instant! You do not get to judge me, young lady. This is my house, and in my house you respect me. Now get back in there and eat something. You look horrible.” Her tone inflicts a pain that I want to return.

“It hasn’t even been a year!” The volume of my accusation hurts my own ears. “Did you ever even love him?”

Her face contorts, changing from shock to anger to something that looks nearly wicked. “That’s quite the question coming from you, when you packed your bags and left everyone without looking over your shoulder.”

“I hate you right now.” My voice comes out balanced and heat races through me. I was never the rebellious teenager. In all of my life, I never did scream these same words at my mom like I’d heard Mindi, Jenny, Kendall, and even Savannah do on different occasions. But right now, all I feel toward her is hatred that blinds me from any other emotion.

“I’m not so fond of you lately either, kiddo.”

“Then why in the hell did you make such a big deal about me coming home?”

“It was a mistake.” Her light blue eyes look glacial as she stares directly into mine without a hint of regret or remorse.

“I guess you can add it to your list, behind getting engaged within seven months of your husband dying.” My words are far quieter this time. I don’t have the energy to scream them at her like I want to. I use the small amount of what is left to turn before she can respond and head out to the backyard.

My pain feels like a living, breathing thing, consuming me inch by inch as her words play over in my head.
My mom’s getting married
. The heat that had filled me seconds ago fades, replaced by an icy chill. As I look into the pool that once only held fun and an escape, my body begins to sway. I want to escape again. I want to escape from
everything
.

Not even the familiar pool holds a warm embrace for me. The water is far cooler than what it has always been kept at, making my skin prickle as I sink further into the abyss. I open my eyes as I go, looking out into a never ending sea of blue.

Arms grab me before I can fully appreciate the beauty of the water and the bubbles floating from my throat to the surface where blurred lights dance. They pull me against a large body that feels sharp in contrast to the open water. As we plunge through the surface, into the night air, I hear him take in a deep breath. He is still anchoring me against him, pulling me toward the shallow end.

I don’t resist. I don’t know what I was doing coming in here. I’m sure Kyle’s thinking I’m insane, or trying to kill myself. I’m not. I wasn’t. I just needed to feel something that didn’t hurt.

Kyle doesn’t stop until we hit the three-feet marker and then we stop. His hands move from my waist to firmly grip my shoulders. The thin burgundy sweater he wore to dinner, something that I’m sure Mindi had chosen to match her emerald green dress, is plastered to his chest and water’s dripping from his hair, face, and clothes as he stares at me, waiting for an explanation.
What were you thinking? What were you doing?
His eyes plead to know.

My mouth opens to apologize, to explain that I would have come back up. Instead, I begin to cry.

He pulls me against him, allowing my body to be completely reliant on his as I go weak with sobs. A few moments later, another pair of arms wrap around both of us.

“We love you, Ace,” Jenny whispers softly, her voice filled with tears.

A chorus of soft splashes fills the silence of the night, and one by one my family converges in the pool, weaving their arms around us.

“Dad would have loved this. He probably would have tried to require that it be a tradition,” Mindi says, followed by a loud sniffling from behind me.

“Yeah he would,” Savannah adds, her voice remorseful.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kendall’s voice lacks the nostalgia that our older sisters’ both hold. Hers is filled with intent and purpose. “Min, since your house is closest, do you mind if we move everything there?”

“Yeah, we’ve got everything. Let’s go,” Kyle answers in agreement, bypassing my oldest sister’s response.

“Kyle, take her to the front. I’ll go grab some towels,” Mindi instructs, pulling herself loose from the web we’ve become.

It continues to slowly unfold with her absence, and I look around, watching each of my sisters and their husbands or boyfriends huddle in on themselves as we wade to the steps to climb out.

I insist that I’ll be fine, that we can all stay and I won’t bring things up again, or at least get my own things if they insist on leaving, but Kendall nor Kyle consider my words.

“We’re done here,” is Kyle’s response when I begin to protest again. His arm feels heavier than I remember it being as it wraps around my shoulders. We go around the back to the side gate and wait by Jameson’s car, each of us creating a dark puddle on the driveway as we shiver.

For some reason Steven’s welcome rings in my ears again. It never dawned on me that when he’d said “
welcome home
,” he’d meant his home, not mine.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

–Maya Angelou

H
umans are 99.9 percent anatomically the same. It’s a fact. So how is it possible that .01 percent makes everything about Max so different? Did my skin really burn when he had touched me? Had we fit together so seamlessly? Is every perfect memory a lie that my mind and body have created to torture me? I wish they were, but flipping back through the pictures that I brought home with me resurrects memories with such precise detail that I feel as though I’m experiencing each of them again. I can feel Max’s touch, smell the crisp spiciness of his skin, and hear the soft rumble from his laugh. Each image hurts a bit more than the last, yet I can’t set them down, or stop from going through them and carefully studying each one. I know I won’t be able to function until I see them all and allow myself to remember again.

Tears stream down my face, and my body is covered in a sticky coating of cold sweat that plasters my hair to my neck and face. My heart is beating so fast I can feel it in my throat and behind the throbbing of my eyes that search around the dark space, seeking a familiar item to bring some comfort.

My nightmares are worse than my memories, because in my nightmares tragedy strikes and I’m always a few steps behind, but I’m always there to see it occur.

I grab my phone from my nightstand and see that it’s 4:23 a.m. The covers shift as I sit up, exposing my damp skin to the cold air. My muscles constrict painfully with shivers, and I cry a few more tears simply from the discomfort that I’m experiencing, in addition to trying to fight the images of seeing Max lying in a casket. In my father’s casket.

I try to take a few breaths and steady the racing of my heart, speaking aloud to assure myself that it was all just a horrible, horrible nightmare—one of a thousand that has plagued me since last May. I feel saliva start to pool in my mouth. The churning of my stomach as my mind conjures up the image has startled me awake, and I dash to the bathroom where I lose the contents with a painful heave that makes my tears increase.

After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I change out of my sweat-drenched clothes and pull on his old T-shirt and fall back into my bed. I had re-inflated it last night and it feels a little too full, but at this point I really couldn’t care less. Reaching toward a large box I use as my nightstand, I turn on the lamp then carefully hold the sides of the stack of pictures so I don’t smudge them. I turn through them all again and wonder what he’s doing now.

The gym is a lost thought as the morning wears on. I spend an ungodly amount of time on simply getting dressed, fixing a bowl of cereal, and trying to recall what day of the week it is so I know what time I need to show up for class. It’s Wednesday and Kitty moved our session up today so that it’s my first stop.

Great.

“How are you feeling this morning, Harper?”

I work for nonchalance as I give her a shrug, and nod in response.

She waits.

I must have tightened my lips, or an emotion flashed in my eyes, or I moved my finger—hell, maybe I just took too long of a breath, but I can tell she knows something is off. Recently, she has begun resorting to these silent stare-downs with me when she hits a sore spot. I know when she’s initiating one because her head tilts to the side, just as it is now, and her green eyes seem to grow with determination. There are few things more awkward than sitting in a room with another person and having them stare at you. It irks me beyond measure, but she already knows that. That’s why she does it.

“I sometimes have these dreams about death. Last night I dreamed that I was at Max’s funeral.”

Thankfully Kitty never gloats when she wins our silent exchanges and fortunately reins in her intense staring. “That must be very difficult. I’m sure they must dig up fears and memories from your father’s funeral, and plagues your mind with new ones. Is it always Max?”

“No.”

“Do you think it’s reflective of your relationships with those in your dreams?”

My eyes widen as I search the room for anything to stare at other than her. They land on Fuego, the Betta Fish that has to stomach my stories and confessions as well.

“How’s Fitz doing?” She rarely gives me allowances like this these days, and my eyes turn to her to ensure that she’s not tricking me. “That’s not a very common name. Is it a nickname?” she continues. Her questions are coming too close together. It gives me an eerie feeling that she’s preparing to broach a bigger target.

“He’s good.”

She nods a few times and then stands up from her chair and goes around the back to her desk. “I’d like to discuss your work at the lab today.” Her movement had provided me with a false sense of security. Generally, when she introduces a subject that I don’t want to discuss, she remains in her seat with her green eyes blazing holes in me as she gives me her silent, knowing looks.

“It’s going well.”

“I want to discuss why you chose to focus on aortic aneurisms.”

My jaw goes slack and my skin prickles with goose bumps, even though it’s always too warm in here, even for me. I hear Kitty moving some papers around, but I don’t watch her. Controlling my emotions right now takes every ounce of focus that I have.

Thousands of thoughts and set responses drift through my mind before I finally take a deep breath in preparation of my words. “My dad’s death gave me a direction. I never knew what I wanted to do other than help people. Studying aortic aneurisms gives me an opportunity to potentially help a lot of people.”

“Do you think he’d want you to be doing this?”

“This?”

She raises an eyebrow at me. She used to allow me to play dumb and eat up time to sort through my thoughts and create responses. She doesn’t look at all willing to do that right now.

“Living in Delaware, studying how to prevent what killed him?” I ask, taking on her role.

“Moving away from your family and changing your life so drastically, while spending most of your time focused on how to conquer something that conquered him.”

“He always supported my decisions.”

“If he was here now, would you still be here? Still studying aortic aneurisms?”

“I told you, his death gave me a focus.”