Authors: Allie Brennan
Gram clutches her hands together and quickly makes her way to the couch. Talia lifts her arm off her face and yawns, her shirt has ridden up and a strip of milky skin that stretches over her hipbone catches my eye. She sits up without a word and wraps her arms around Gram who strokes her back. I lean against the wall trying to think of when such little skin could cause such a stir within me.
~
“So when does she start treatment?” Gram asks while blowing on her tea.
I look between them, not saying anything, just watching. Gram gave Talia some knitting needles and she’s already half done a scarf. It seems to calm her down. I smile to myself. She cares too much about everything and I don’t care enough.
“Next week,” Talia says. “I feel so bad Georgina. I just left. Nan’s sick and I’m worried about my own feelings. How awful is that?”
Tears fill her eyes again, and I’m just about to lean over but Gram beats me to it. She clutches Talia’s knee with her arthritic hand, which makes Talia smile.
“Florence understands dear. It’s not awful. You love her very much, your feelings are very valid.”
Gram leans back and continues to blow on her tea. We sit in silence for a while before Gram stands and slaps her thighs.
“Well this old lady has to take her buns to bed,” she says. “Lachlan, you won’t stay up too late? You have school in the morning.” It’s not as much of a question as it sounds so I just nod.
Talia stands to hug Gram then turns to me.
“I should go. My parents are probably worried about me.”
I swear she rolls her eyes when she says it, but they are so red and puffy I might be seeing things.
“I’ll walk you out.” I stand and stretch quickly before placing my hand on her shoulder and guiding her to the door.
She is so fragile
, I think.
With Talia I am in completely new territory. She’s completely opposite of what I’m used to.
~
We stand on the porch and Talia says for the thousandth time that she would rather ride her bike than have me drive her.
“It’s not a big deal, your bike would fit in the Granny wagon.”
Talia laughs and I beam. So lame. She
is
going to turn me into one of those guys.
She puts her hands on my upper arms and cocks her head to one side.
“I’m fine, Lachlan. Really. Thank you. For the offer and…for everything else.”
She casts her eyes down to her sneakers and drops her hands. I reach out and cup the back of her neck with one hand and push her bangs off her forehead with the other. I pull her in and kiss her right on her hair line. Vanilla and almonds with a hint of tears. I squeeze her into my chest and she holds onto my waist. I kiss her forehead again and slide her away from me. It’s more of a friend gesture, but if I kiss her how I really want too... Why do I want to kiss her this bad?
“Take care of yourself, Hat Girl. You’re stronger than you think.”
She smiles and runs her fingers down my arm, the one with the scars. This doesn’t feel like a friend gesture, but I’m probably reading into it.
“So are you.”
She turns and leaves. Even when she’s out of sight I still stand on the porch with my arm tingling.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Talia
It’s the first weekend in October and the day I have to submit my work for jurying. It’s also Nan’s first treatment. I’ve been avoiding everyone. Not unusual for me. My mom, Nan, Georgina. I even missed the last Knitting club meeting. I’ve especially been avoiding Lachlan.
Did I say avoid? I mean I run away every time I see him but he texts me constantly and I always text back. I can’t help myself. I want to be friends with him. I feel calm and comfortable around him now, which makes me uncomfortable. That doesn’t even make sense.
Want me to come with u?
I stare at my phone too much now. I’m becoming one of those girls. I don’t want to talk to him, but I don’t want to not talk to him.
I sigh and text back.
Nah, I should go alone. I don’t want you covered in my snot again. Lol
I blush and shove the phone into my bag. It beeps almost immediately and I snatch it up. Yup. Totally becoming one of those girls.
But there’s nothing I like more than being covered in your snot. C U 2nite @ the shelter? Shitty...
My heart jumps. Volunteering. I forgot.
I start to text back. I rewrite the text so many times I’m sick of myself. I used to gag when Janna would ask me what she should say to a guy.
“Say whatever you want,”
I would always reply. My stomach drops and churns a few times. I wonder who coached her through hooking up with Deacon. I miss her but I’m angry with her. It’s a weird space to be in.
I toss the phone back into the bag and tighten the scarf around my neck. The air is cold but the sun is warm. Leaves crunch under my bike tire and I wonder when I’ll have to give up the bike for good and go back to bussing it.
I swing my leg over the bar and push forward in the direction of the hospital. I haven’t apologized to Nan yet. I have to. I have to be there for her.
~
She’s already hooked up to a machine when I get to the hospital.
I pull up a chair and kiss her on the forehead. The nurse squints at me and I smile. I’ve already done a lot of begging to be in this room and don’t want to mess it up.
“Nan, I just wanted to say,” I start, pulling my chair closer. Nan raises her hand and stops me.
“It’s fine, darling. I forget sometimes that you don’t see death the same way I do.”
My heart stops at the word death. What does she mean see it the same way? Death is death.
I start to form the question but Nan starts talking.
“I’ve lost all four of my grandparents, both my parents and my husband. I won’t say I’m used to it, but I will say I understand it. I love you very much but your mother is right. You need to be aware, you need to be strong and I, unfortunately, have spent too much time protecting you and not enough preparing you.”
I’m at a loss. My first instinct is to argue with her. Seeing her sitting in that chair attached to a tube that’s feeding chemicals into her blood, I can’t bring myself to argue.
Instead, I pull out the white hat I made for the jury. I had to start over since I cried all over the last one and then destroyed it in a mild outburst I had after getting back from Lachlan’s and having my mother ground me. The first time that I needed to go out and she gets mad at me for it. I’ve just added it to the list of her strange behaviour. Spending ridiculous amounts of time in the bathroom, staring at me but refusing to say anything and then getting really, really mad about something that should have been understandable. I almost wish she’d go back to avoiding me.
The new white hat has both red and green cables and I pinned a piece of holly on the side. It’s pretty. Christmasy. Snowy. I knew Nan would love it. I still prefer the skull.
I place it in Nan’s lap and watch as a huge smile spreads across her face.
“Sold,” she says and throws it back to me.
“What do you mean sold? And you didn’t even look at it.” I’m offended and guessing it shows on my face by the way Nan’s looking at me.
“I don’t need to. It’s perfect. And after it is juried and accepted, I want to buy it. I’m going to lose all my hair just in time for the snow, and I need something to keep my head warm.”
I purse my lips, understanding her attempt at humor, but I don’t think it’s funny. I don’t see how I can or will ever laugh at this. She’s dying and she’s making a joke out of it. Suddenly I'm angry all over again.
I stuff the hat back in my bag and start another hat while Nan hums. She’s not as good as Georgina but her voice is still soothing.
I am half done another hat by the time Nan is ready to go.
“You’re so talented,” she says.
The hat is multicolored. That crazy yarn dyed ten different colors. I chuckle to myself while turning the hat in my hands.
“No wonder they call me Hat Girl,” I say thinking of the boxes of hats I have in my room. It’s only October and already I’ve made about 25 of them.
“Hat girl?” Nan asks.
“At school,” I explain.“It’s what they call me now ever since Lachlan started wearing my hat. Everyone wants one.”
“That’s wonderful,” Nan smiles weakly. I have never described anything about Nan as being weak and it makes me hurt all over. It feels like she is one step closer to death. My foot taps and that tight feeling in my chest that screams panic is closing in.
I take a deep breath and try to remind myself that she is right in front of me. She’s right here.
I lean forward and hug her. She pats my face then we make our way to my parents car.
We drive in silence. Nan has her eyes closed and her head lolls to one side. Frail. I hate it. I hold back tears and stare at the road.
“Love you forever, Nan,” I say when I drop her off.
“Forever and always,” she whispers and climbs slowly from the car. I feel the sting of tears and need to get out of here.
~
I cinch my coat tighter around me and pull my scarf over my nose as I stand outside in the wind. Lachlan was supposed to be here 15 minutes ago. My one leg shakes and I shift my weight. I hate waiting. I cross my arms and groan. I’m mad. First because he’s late and second because it seems I’m always mad at him and third because I’m stuck standing in the cold with nothing but thoughts of my disaster of a day.
Starting with Nan then moving on to dropping my hat off for jurying my day just kept getting worse. I forgot—no I pushed it out of my head—that the director of the Cozy Christmas Charity Drive was Deacon’s grandmother who insisted on talking about my and Deacon’s break-up. She isn’t very cozy.
I forget that not all Nans are kind and caring and smell like baking like mine, or meddling and funny and old fashioned like Georgina. Greta is cold and calculated and really just an awful person.
I had a panic attack after I dropped off my white hat and she looked down her crooked pretentious nose at it and asked, “You’re submitting this?” Then I came home and cried and now the jerk I may, or may not, have a crush on has stood me up for the only requirement of the Charity Drive, volunteering.
I just about write him off when I see Georgina’s car turn a little too quickly onto my street. Lachlan is out of the car so fast that I wonder if he remembered to put it into park.
I glare.
“I know, I know. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. I’m here.” Lachlan wraps his arm around my shoulder and ushers me into the car. He closes the door for me before I can respond.
~
Lachlan has this strange mixture of mysterious bad boy with southern gentlemen with rockstar charm. I can’t keep up with him and he has me spun around so many times it’s hard to keep track of what I like about him and what I don’t. Sometimes they overlap.
No, they always overlap.
I’m watching him as we fold towels in the shelter’s basement laundry room. It’s steamy and hot. The faint smell of fabric softener mixes with the thick, musty air and it’s hard to breathe without tasting it.
Lachlan’s sleeves are pushed up and his tattoos flex and stretch. It’s like a mural, arranged in no particular order other than to flow from one to the other in a lucid and dreamlike swirl of color and shape. Most of the images are kind of dark and scary, but I think that has a lot to do with whatever his dad did to him. I try to pick out different elements but he moves so fast I can’t focus on anything but that wristband. The wristband that covers the huge scar across his inner wrist.
“You never did tell me what that symbol meant.” I lay a towel on top of the one he just folded and we both grab another one.
“I didn’t.”
He doesn’t even look over at me and I seriously want to stomp my foot. How immature is that? But I can’t help it. I roll my eyes instead.
“Are you ever going to?”
Lachlan places his folded towel down on the washer and flips around to face me. He leans on the machine and crosses one foot over the other.
Here we go, tough guy.
“Are you ever going to tell me why you’re so rigid all the time?”
I step back both literally and metaphorically. “I am not rigid,” I say, my voice hard. My body stiffens, which totally doesn’t help my case. “And that’s a very personal question.”
“So is this.” Lachlan holds out his arm.
I stumble over words that form in my mouth. I forget them as soon as they dissolve on my tongue. I have no idea how long we stand there with my jaw wobbling like one of the wind-up teeth toys that chatter.
Lachlan laughs, the arrogant one that slides it’s way under my skin and leaves me both hot and cold. He stretches his arms up in the air and casually grips a thick solid looking water pipe that hangs from the low ceiling. He lifts himself up like a monkey and dangles in the air. I can see his stomach and the elastic band of his underwear and I try to look away. He sets himself down on the washer and not once has he shifted his eyes away from mine. He’s making fun of me, but I can’t figure out how, or why. I also don’t know where this display of macho-male is coming from but it makes my stomach flutter.
“Tell me, Hat Girl.” Lachlan’s voice gets lower, huskier. “Have you ever done anything bad in your life? And I’m not talking, like, stole a candy bar as a kid, bad…”
My heart pounds and my breathing speeds up but this is definitely not a panic attack. This is totally different. Exciting.
“I mean really bad,” he continues.
Lachlan spreads his knees apart and leans forward slightly, using the pipe just above his head to brace himself.
My jaw now feels like it’s disappeared altogether and my cheeks fill with heat. I stutter over a few things that could constitute as bad but I stop myself because I know that’s not what he means.
I take a step toward him, my feet moving without my permission.
“Bad?” I finally push out, but my voice squeaks. I am too flustered to be embarrassed.