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His older sisters were identical twins. Both nice and smart-they were off in college before we got together, so I didn't really know them, but they seemed nice the two times I met them. His younger brother, Henry, was three years younger than me.
Jake's mother busied herself in the kitchen, putting an end to our talk. I wandered out to the living room and watched Henry. He liked to rock himself back and forth when he played alone on the living room floor. It was a game no one understood but him. From what I could tell, it required his imagination, a sharpened pencil, and the mumbled sounds of explosions. Jake said Henry played it all the time. He was either painting or crouched on the floor, flipping a pencil.
Henry hardly spoke to anyone and when he did, he never looked them in the eye. Jake said he could tell Henry was listening by the way he leaned his head to one side, inclining his ear. Sometimes, when I greeted him, he'd pat my shoulder as he turned away.
What Henry lacked in etiquette, he made up for in talent. He was a really great painter-he did abstracts in oils, mostly. But there was this one charcoal drawing he'd done of Jake that literally took my breath away every time I saw it. It was mounted in the hallway because Jake hated walking in and seeing himself hanging over the sofa. It was a still-life; Jake sitting on a stool with his legs outstretched. His face held a faraway look, like he was lost in thought with a cigarette in his hand.
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After that first day, Jake took me by his moms whenever he felt like it; usually for dinner.
He also used to tease me, relentlessly, about my taste in music that wasn't his. He sincerely disliked hair bands in general, but knew how I loved them. One night, when we went over to his moms place to eat, we walked inside and Jake went straight to the living room, mumbling something to his mom. She pointed at the entertainment center.
Jake turned around, wearing a ridiculous grin. His mom walked over to the kitchen doorway. She paused to wave to me and laughed when she looked back at Jake.
"What?" I asked, loving the greeting and sparkles in their eyes.
"Listen to this." Jake smirked and quickly turned around to the stereo. He popped a tape into the tape deck. The room filled with screeching guitar. I jumped at the sudden noise and he laughed.
"This is my new song for you." He took me into his arms, leading me in a misplaced slow dance to Seventeen by Winger.
We both laughed out loud. "It's fitting. Don't you think so, Liar?"
+++
The memory of his sparkling gaze leaves at quickly as it came and I am alone again, with only my fragmented mind to keep me company. I shut my eyes, willing myself to sleep.
+ + +
20
-Avery
The day I first saw Angel was the day of her accident. We didn't talk until the day with the kittens, but I first saw her on the day she was liberated from her psycho birth mother by way of a wreck.
There were large birds in a grouping of trees and I used to like to watch birds. I was standing at that bend in the road, watching and thinking how the long-necked fowl might be some kind of crane. They looked rare, I thought, because I had never seen birds like that in the area. The cranes were drinking from the puddles between the drying trees. I can't remember if it had been raining or if someone had just watered, but I know there were puddles everywhere.
I didn't know anymore about what caused the accident than Angel did-beyond the obvious fact that the mother never used her brakes. In fact, she sped up as the car neared the bend in the road. Angel's mother was way beyond fucked. Had to be, to take her daughter, set her into a car without a seatbelt, and then decide to keep going straight when the road curved just as easy as choosing tea over coffee.
But I did like to watch birds. The way they fly and loop through the air, I used to think it was beautiful. Now that I am caged, I'm sure of it.
When I think about it, I think that birds live mysterious lives. They do the strangest things. A million of them used to gather inside of one, tiny tree in the high school parking lot. They'd sit there, singing their songs and sounding so happy. When they flew away, they'd do it with such uniform grace.
Flying always fascinated me.
I also used to watch the birds playing in the sprinklers at the schoolyard. They'd soar from the crowded tree in the parking lot in small groups and make for the showering spray. They'd start out so high up, then dive down into the fountains shooting from the sprinklers. And then, go back up and loop back down again. Each bird moved according to what the others did. It was if they had no single path, but all shared it-a hundred tiny birds moving as one entity.
Sometimes, when I looked outside my bedroom window at night, I would wonder where the birds were and what they were doing. I wanted to know if they were happy and chirping, or if they were nesting somewhere, oblivious to my wonderings. I wanted to be one of those birds looping up and down, to be capable of taking the things that I needed and float back up into the sky. Far, far away from everything below.
+++
"Thank you for doing this, Avery." Angel squirmed in her chair.
We were seated in the long corridor at Carlisle's rinky-dink County Hospital. There was a long reflective panel that stretched along the wall. As I stared at it, I could hardly believe that I was there.
"You know I'm always here for you." I said, even though I felt like leaving and never looking back.
With a deep breath, I patted Angels' shoulder, stood up, and turned into the heavy door that was the entrance into Doctor Williams waiting area. Her office door was open so, I kept going and took a seat on a thinly padded seat set before the doctors' desk. Adjusting myself in the chair, I set my hands gently onto the smooth wooden ends of each arm. Despite the lacking impression, the seat felt plush.
