Page 42 of Saving Sparrow
Feeling breakable right then, I climbed off the bed and headed for my closet. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep anyway after insisting Quentin and Miguel leave so I could take a nap. They hadn’t wanted to. Quentin was stubborn about it, but Miguel got him to give in.
“He needs us,”he’d said, almost making me cry again when he added,“and we need him too.”
Miguel stared at him as if he could see through him, like he saw something no one else could.“Come on, I’ll wrestle with you and let you win this time.”
“I always win,”Quentin mumbled, but got up and left with Miguel.
I was home alone but still glanced over my shoulder at the closet doorway before opening the bottom dresser drawer. After removing the clothes, I pulled the drawer out completely to get to the envelope I kept taped to the bottom.
My hands shook as I pulled the folded sheet of paper from inside, trying to decipher the three words written in a handwriting that wasn’t mine. I searched my memories for an answer, but my mind was an unsolvable puzzle. The harder I tried to force the pieces into place, the more scrambled they became. My therapist swore she could help if I would just talk to her.
“You have to let me in.”It only made me hold back even more.
I whispered a few words of prayer, staring down at the dirt-covered note I’d held when I woke up that day in the woods far from my house. That familiar feeling of being alone, of God not listening to me, made my eyes burn.
Tell them nothing,it read, and so I hadn’t. Not the good Samaritans who found me, not anyone. I’d been living by those three words ever since.
But sometimes I slipped with Quentin and Miguel, and I hated it. Hated that they made me feel both safe and scared, made me want to open up and hide at the same time. It was the way they looked at me whenever I said goodbye, like they were worried they’d never see me again, like losing me would hurt them. No one had ever looked at me that way. Not even my parents.
Or maybe it was the way their eyes lit up every time they found me in the woods, like they couldn’t believe I was real, like our night apart made them wake up thinking they’d imagined me.
It made my heart race and my stomach feel weak. It made me feel wanted, made me feel a part of something when I’d only ever felt separated from everything.
Quentin and Miguel didn’t need me. If I disappeared right now, they’d be fine because they had each other. Yet, it seemed like the opposite was true. They made me feel essential to them, and we hadn’t even known each other for that long.
I felt it too, though. I secretly went to sleep every night excited about being found in the woods the next day, excited to see Quentin charging at me with his goofy smile, Miguel following with his glasses a little crooked on his face.
I didn’t want to show up at their door, didn’t want to let myself in. Maybe because I worried that somehow I’d only imagined them too, imagined my importance to them. Maybe I was scared I’d walk into their bedroom and not see the same happiness I saw when they’d worked up a sweat searching for me. I guess I needed the constant reminder that they wanted me around. This scared, shy boy with missing memories, who loved to wear pretty things.
Putting everything back in place, I then hurried to lock my bedroom door before pulling out the dress I kept hidden under my mattress. It was the one I wore when Quentin and Miguel spotted me for the first time in the woods. I’d snuck it from my aunt’s things after she’d left me alone to go pick out furniture.
The house was secluded and surrounded by woods, so I didn’t think I’d be seen by anyone. I’d lost track of time exploring the grounds and had run past the tree line when my aunt showed up shouting my name.
Removing the uncomfortable clothes I currently wore, I pulled the dress over my head, exhaling as the soft fabric slid down my body. I didn’t pray first, and the shame wasn’t any better or worse because of it.
I tried to put those negative feelings and thoughts to the side, allowing the sense of freedom to be present. When it seemed that it wouldn’t work, when the panic made it hard to breathe, I thought about Quentin and Miguel.
“You look fucking beautiful in that dress, pretty girl.”
“Green is your color,”Miguel liked to say.
It almost worked, but the bad voice in my head broke through.
“Satan is at work here, Elliott, and I no longer believe you can be saved.”
“No,” I ground out, going back to Quentin and Miguel.
“You can be yourself around us.”
“We like you the way you are.”
“You’re ours now, Elliott.”
I smiled to myself, even if it was shaky, then went to stand in front of the full-length mirror. My hair was a wild mess, and my eyes were still puffy from all the crying I’d done. I ignored that and focused on the dress.
Quentin and Miguel saw me in this and thought I was a girl. I didn’t know what would’ve been worse at the time, my aunt catching me or them teasing me. Knowing my aunt’s plans for me, I’d taken my chances with them.
They’d stared at me with confusion and curiosity once they realized I wasn’t a girl. I tensed, waiting for whatever they would do or say next.
