Page 70 of Avenged

“I’ve found,” I said before my body followed that scrambling bodies thought too far, “that when you’re truly friends with someone, you each have moments when you’re the rat holding on for dear life, and moments when you’re the one bringing the other to the surface. Being there to help through life’s ups and downs is the true beauty of a friendship, don’t you think?”

She just stared at the pink box, and I wondered if she’d ever really had a friend. Mandy and Leena were more like surrogate aunts or adopted grandmothers. Violet was her friend, but Jersey also felt responsible for her, so it was more like she was the mom. There wasn’t anyone else.

I opened the box and took out one of the chocolate cookies from inside. They were the ones she’d told me were her mom’s favorites. I’d made the stop at the bakery just to get them. I took a bite. “There, feel better? Now I can say I bought them for me, and I’m sharing them with you.”

“They’re chocolate crinkles,” she said in a stunned voice as I took another bite of the chocolate goodness.

I nodded.

“Do you always pay this close attention to what your friends say?” she asked.

“I like to think so.”

She took a cookie out of the box and turned it over. “I haven’t had one of these in…” Her voice faded away, choked on emotions, and I wondered if I’d done the right thing. In trying to cheer her up and make her smile, it seemed like I’d done the opposite.

I said, “I’m sorry,” just as she took a bite of the cookie and moaned with eyes closed. Jesus, the moan about did me in.

She opened her eyes and smiled again, and my heart climbed its way out of my stomach where it had fallen and leapt right up to my throat. “Oh my God, it’s so good. I’d forgotten how good they were.”

She finished the cookie off in just a couple bites as I watched, mesmerized. She licked her fingers and smiled up at me, and there she was. The Jersey who stunned me every time she showed up. Joy lighting her up from the inside out.

“Thank you,” she said. She had a little dusting of powdered sugar on the tip of her nose.

I reached over the counter and rubbed it off with my thumb. My skin touching hers hit me like it always did. Like an anchor being thrown into the sand, steadying it, and yet rocking the boat at the same time. Collision and motion. Freedom and security all rolled together.

Jersey

CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING

“What has started as friendship has grown stronger,

I only wish I had the strength to let it show.”

Performed by REO Speedwagon

Written by Cronin Kevin

I pushed Travis’s hand away from my nose, rubbing it on my shoulder to remove the leftover powdered sugar that had to have been there. I was a little in awe of him. That he remembered my comment about my mom loving these cookies. That he’d come in to the store just to give them to me. It shot a spike of pure joy through my heart, because now I could enjoy the chocolate crinkles and think of them and her with a smile instead of the memory being filled with sadness.

Travis had brought me lots of moments of joy over the last couple weeks. I was being cared for in ways I hadn’t been in so long. Ways that Mandy and Leena had tried, and I’d refused. But ever since the moment he’d held me after he’d read my dad’s letter, and my normal shield had fallen apart, I found myself letting him do things for me without the huge protest I would normally have made.

Like bring me iced tea while I worked in the garden.

Like going with me to Chesire.

Like giving me chocolate crinkles.

Every time he did something for me, he went out of his way to make it feel like it wasn’t an imposition. That it wasn’t strictly for me. That it was just something he was doing and would do for anybody. But he wasn’t bringing Violet iced tea while she did her homework. He wasn’t buying cookies for her. Sure, he’d bring Dawson a beer if they both happened to be at home in front of the TV, but the things he did for me seemed… more.

Or maybe I just wanted them to be. I bounced between his kiss meaning everything and his kiss meaning nothing. Whenever my stupid heart landed on it being more, I reminded myself he wasn’t staying. That I wasn’t leaving. That we’d signed a contract which we should stick to. We were friends, just like he said, and that was a rare enough commodity in my life that I shouldn’t look for more out of it than what it simply was. Friendship.

I told myself that, but my body and soul knew I lied.

I was still trying to tell myself the same thing as he drove the next day to Cheshire Correctional Institution. I’d said I’d drive, but he’d just given me a look, and I’d caved, when even three weeks ago, I would have argued until I’d frustrated both of us. But the truth was, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to drive anyway, because the stress of the trip had my insides curled up into a tight fist that wouldn’t relax, no matter the stretches or breathing techniques I used.

I’d felt some relief from the pain in the last few days. It had taken me overcoming a whole host of inhibitions to use the pelvic wand the physical therapist gave me, but I was using it. Between those internal stretches, the yoga-type stretches, the progesterone IUD, and the pain meds, there were a lot of days where the ache was just at the back of my brain as a vague reminder it was there instead of the all-intensive stabbing sensation requiring more energy than I had. It allowed me to not dwell on thoughts of what the adenomyosis meant for my future, and children, and cancer. The small relief was welcome.

Once we arrived at the jail, we signed in and were asked a host of questions about our travel and our health before going past the metal detectors to where a guard led us to a visitation room. We sat down, and I didn’t realize I was twisting my ring around my thumb until Travis put his hands over mine. “Just remember, we can leave at any time. But maybe we should have a safe word in case you want to go but feel like you can’t just say it.”

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