Page 134 of Catch the Sun

I go to protest, but she’s already marching down the hallway toward the kitchen. Sighing, I close the door behind her and drink in the quiet. I stand in the center of the room, taking it all in, my eyes panning around the small space and its piles of organized clutter.

As my gaze catches with sullen green in the mirror across the way, I pause to look at my reflection. Truly look at her. She’s an accurate representation of my insides, I decide. Sickly and sapped. Anemic. My pale skin is almost translucent with gray circles underlining my eyes. Once-shiny hair hangs in drab and stringy sections as it frames my face, thanks to the cheap toiletries provided by the hospital and rehabilitation center. Mom brought over my favorite conditioner, but it never left my backpack. Healthy hair didn’t seem important at the time when every other part of me was running on empty. An ailing soul and bedridden heart.

The doctor told me that depression and mood swings were likely. A therapist came in to talk to me a few times, but what could I say? Last December I was on the precipice of falling in love with a boy, and that boy shares an eerily similar face with the person who attacked me and left me for dead.

No.

There is no healing there. There is only a gaping wound bleeding with irony.

While Brynn has been a notable source of warmth and solace, I’ve noticed that, somewhere along the way…I stopped adding the exclamation point to the end of her name. I slowly make my way over to bed and wrench a quilt from the mattress, carrying it to my mirror and draping it over the glass. I don’t want to see the physical evidence of my decline.

There is no healing there, either.

Before I shuffle back to bed, I falter near the window. I glance outside at the dusky sky that’s painted with the final remnants of a setting sun. Blood orange and dark pink. The colors spill over the roof of the Manning residence, making it look like it’s aflame with otherworldly fire. It’s haunting and beautiful at the same time. I savor the view for a few minutes before I tug the window up acrack, grateful it isn’t sticking, and crawl into bed.

Mom knocks on my door an hour later, telling me dinner is ready, but I ignore her and feign sleep. Her footsteps retreat and everything is quiet again. Dusk transitions to nightfall but sleep never comes. The hours tick by in slow motion as I toss and turn, kicking off my bedsheets then drawing them back up. I roll onto my back, my side, trying to get comfortable. But comfort can’t find me.

I wonder all night if he’ll climb through my window.

He never does.

***

Day two brings another round of detectives to my doorstep. They’d filtered in and out of the hospital with notepads and stoic faces in the days following my revival from the coma, asking questions and interrogating me about the fall.

Names were thrown around.

I denied everything.

With no evidence aside from the mysterious bruise on my cheek, their hands are tied. They saunter out of my house thirty minutes later, no closer to the truth. I make my way out to the front porch, my walker leading the way, and watch the patrol cars zoom out of the gravel driveway.

As tires shoot up a cloud of rocks and grit, I squint into the sunlight. A lawn mower throttles from across the street as the dust settles. Max stands in the center of his lawn, yanking the rope-start multiple times to no avail. Sunshine washes down on him from above, making his skin glisten against a dark-navy tank. His biceps bulge with every rough tug on the rope-start.

He gives up after five tries, blowing out a breath and taking a step back from the mower. I watch as sweat trickles down the side of his neck and dampens the roots of his hair.

He stalks toward me a moment later.

I straighten on the porch, my grip on the walker tightening, but less for physical support. I watch Max cross the street that separates our properties, his eyes on the ground.

“Hi,” I call out when he marches through the spring-green lawn.

I can’t believe it’s already spring.

It still feels like winter, in more ways than one.

“Hey.” He stops in front of me, still nearly a foot taller than me despite my elevation on the porch step. “How are you?”

“Doing better. I feel a lot stronger.” I lift my arm and flex my bicep, infusing lightness into my tone. “But you’d definitely win at arm wrestling right now.”

Finally, his chin rises and our eyes catch, causing electricity to crackle. Eye contact alone has neon heat fizzing between us. “That’s great, Ella.”

I bite my lip and drop my arm. “Lawn-mower complications?”

“Apparently,” he says, hands sliding into the pockets of his running shorts. “What did the cops say?”

I shrug, feigning nonchalance. “They’re still investigating my fall. I’m not sure why.”

“Some guys at school have been under the microscope. Word got out that you were tossed in the lake last year.” Max’s eyes thin, reading me for a reaction. “You’d tell me if someone hurt you, right?”

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