Page 49 of Plight
She let out a little snort-laugh as we dodged weight machines and treadmills en route to the change rooms.
“I’m just going to ignore that comment,” I said with the disdain that it deserved.
“Whatever. Suit yourself.”
As I passed the gym balls, one of them wobbled and knocked all three from their holders attached to the wall, giant blue balls bouncing in various directions. Blue balls, how ironic?
“Shit!” I chased after them.
“Oh my God,” she laughed. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Why not? It’s just like that time when—”
“When we hid inside the supermarket just before it closed for the night,” she said, continuing to giggle as I rounded up the balls.
“Yep. That’s the one.” I put them back on their stands, smiling at the memory of Danielle and I crouched behind freezers as we watched my sister lock up after her closing shift. If it weren’t for the fact we’d left our bikes leaning against the store wall, we’d have gotten away with it.
“No wonder Laura hates me,” she whispered as if someone could hear her. “She must think I’m such a bad influence on you.”
I held the changeroom door open. “Hiding was my idea.”
“I know! Everything was your idea.”
She was right. Everything was my idea. Just like when we were trapped in the storm drain. Playing underground that day had been my suggestion.
Unable to respond, as the memory stole my movement like it always did, a constant anchor that held me responsible for the terror we’d both experienced, I just stood there instead, trying to smile while continuing to hold the door. She paused for a second as she walked past, but I didn’t raise my eyes to meet hers. I reached out and patted Pugly the baby-dog instead before she continued on to the hand dryer. In that moment, I just couldn’t bring myself to stare into the same eyes that had spilled the most fear I’d ever seen in a person. Eyes that begged me to help them live because they didn’t want to die. Terrified eyes. I’d been in the presence of some terrified guilty and non-guilty clients on the cusp of receiving their sentences, but Danielle’s fear-filled eyes trumped them all, and I just couldn’t bring myself to remember them right now.
“I don’t think he’s gonna like this,” she said.
Closing the door, I helped her unravel Pugly from his towel without looking up, my thoughts drifting somewhere between the time we were ten years old and now.
“Lots?”
“Yeah?”
“Please look at me.”
I raised my eyes to meet hers, concern swirling in their deep brown depths.
“Don’t,” she said, her soft fingers gently trailing down the side of my face, their touch sending a sensation through my skin that I couldn’t quite make out was hot or cold. “It wasn’t your fault. Why can’t you understand that?”
I wondered for a moment if the word ‘guilt’ was written in magic marker all over my face that only she could see, because she’d always somehow been able to read me like an unreadable book.
“You nearly died because of me,” I choked out. “That will always be my fault.”
“We nearly died because we were kids who did stupid kid-things. It was nobody’s fault.”
I nodded, but she was wrong. I’d led us into the drain that day, and I’d convinced her it was safe to stay there with me just so we could be alone. It was definitely my fault.
She sighed and slammed her palm against the dryer button. It roared to life, the noise scaring the bejesus out of Pugly, his barrel-like body tumbling and scrambling in her arms like a crocodile performing a death roll.
“DUDLEY! Stop! It’s okay. It’s just warm air. Warm, noisy air.”
“Here.” I grabbed hold of him before he tore a hole in her lace dress. “Let me hold him while you keep him calm.”
“Somehow, I don’t think he’s gonna be calm during this.”
“Rub his cheeks.”
