I stripped down to my boxer briefs and deposited my clothes on a chair in the corner before starting in on the blankets and sheets. The tricky part was peeling off Zelda's clothes without waking her. A girl who preferred sleeping in the buff would never survive a night confined to a slim-fitting skirt and a noose-neck shirt.
Against all odds, I removed her skirt without incident. It was the least Zelda article of clothing in the world and I hated it with a fiery passion though I hung it in the closet with care. The top proved more difficult. As I inched it up her torso, she came around with several bleary-eyed blinks.
"Help me get this off you, Zelda," I whispered.
"Oh shit," she rasped, her eyes drooping shut. "I didn't mean to fall asleep." I lifted her arms and drew the shirt over her head. Once it was free, I pitched it toward the closet. I'd send it out with my dry cleaning in the morning. "I just wanted to put my head down for a minute. I had things to do."
I ran my thumb over her cheek. It was flushed from where it had laid against her arm. There was more of her to take in—the way those black cotton panties stretched over the curve of her ass, the thin tank top rucked up past her belly button, the purple bra straps sliding down her shoulders—but this, her cheek, her lips, this was enough to send me on another dip and rise of the roller coaster. "I know, love. I know."
As much as I wanted to scoop her up and settle her under the blankets, I couldn't do that. I might've ditched the sling but my shoulder still hurt like hell and the last thing I wanted was to fuck that situation up any further.
"Come on now," I crooned, sliding my good arm under her arms. "Rest your head on the pillows for me. There you go, there we are. Good girl."
Zelda murmured and nodded like a sleepwalker as she flopped down. I circled the bed, climbing in on the opposite side and drawing the blankets up around us. Everything about this was foreign—the mattress, the pillows, the light cutting in from the window—yet all the restlessness inside me fizzled when Zelda nestled her back against my chest and tucked herself into my notches and grooves.
I was almost asleep when she bolted up, murmured "Fuck this" and whipped her bra off through her tank top's arm.
When she reclaimed her spot beside me, I smoothed her hair from her face. "Better?"
"Much," she replied.
As usual, she was right.
17
Zelda
One more thing towarn you about was my stupidly tolerant nature. It coordinated nicely with my occasional obliviousness, like a dress that always lookedjust rightwith an old jean jacket.
I had a storied history of accepting the worst behaviors from others and keeping myself in harmful situations past the point of reason. Part of the trouble was I couldn't help but accept everyone as they came. I believed everyone was doing their best with their circumstances. Believed it past the point of knowing better. Believed it past the point of self-injury. That was stupidly tolerant for you. It wasn't until someone else showed me the toxic sludge I was choking down that I was able to see the poison I'd chosen for myself this time around.
No, I couldn't have helped the circumstances I was born into but I did the best anyone could've expected from a child and I made it through. Though it hadn't been until trading small teenage tragedies with my camp counselor confidant Gunnar DeWitt when I was nineteen that I'd opened my eyes to the reality that my family life was marked by abuse and neglect.
I could remember her reaction as clear as if it'd happened yesterday. I remembered every minute of it. There was no mistaking the face people made when introduced to homemade horrors. It was one of shock and distress but it was also pity. Always pity. The worst part of pity wasn't feeling powerless or small. It was the shame that stole the oxygen from my chest and blocked out the sun.
In keeping with our usual late night gatherings, Gunnar and I surrounded ourselves with chips, cheap wine, and gossip. But that night, I'd tripped into a well of honesty when I told her about the worst sunburn of my life. I was fourteen and I'd tried to develop a base tan on my torso before debuting a new summer bikini. But I'd missed the mark and scorched my skin far past the point of an average sunburn. There were blisters and cracks and an alarming amount of peeling skin—it was gross. It hurt like nothing I'd experienced before and my body treated the entire incident as if it was suffering from the flu. But the real victory, the success of this experience was my ability to conceal it from my parents. I'd slathered myself in creams, kept a cool, damp cloth layered under my clothes, and popped painkillers around the clock until I could exist in my skin without crying. And they never suspected a thing.
I hadn't expected the words to flow as freely as they had and I knew I'd said too much when Gunnar blinked at me, the wine bottle frozen on its way to her lips and pity scrawled over her face. She'd wanted to know why I hid the burn, why I hadn't asked my parents to bring me to a doctor, why hadn't theyhelped. Parents were supposed to care for their children, even when those children did boneheaded things like frying their skin off in the name of beachwear. Then she'd wanted to know everything else about my home life.
She'd informed me it was curious that I'd spent most of my high school years staying with an assortment of friends and only visiting my home once every few weeks. It wasn't okay for my mom to drink to excess every day and say cruel things to me. And leaving me to figure out how I'd get to and from school as a kid wasn't a practical experience in self-reliance or independence. It was abuse—all of it was abuse—even if it didn't leave cuts or bruises.
I hadn't mentioned the sister-mother piece. I didn't tell anyone about that.
Gunnar was the first person who told me it shouldn't have been that way and it didn't have to continue being that way, and I could change it. I hadn't realized how detrimental it was until she'd shown me, just as I hadn't known my life in Denver had simmered down to the same type of scorched terrible until Leesa Bruno, the owner of the spirituality shop, started pulling tarot cards one uneventful afternoon. She asked about grad school and I was forced to tell her I'd put a hold on my studies. Like any good witch, she wanted to know why.
Explaining a flawed, fractured relationship to someone unaware and uninvolved had a way of pulling apart the scar tissue of shame until the whole thing broke in my hands. Shame was the root of it all, of course. It wasn't the shame that followed an awkward moment or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. This was the shame that accompanied me everywhere, a parasitic passenger determined to weigh me down until I stopped moving altogether.
Leesa had listened, just as Gunnar had. She'd pointed out the problems, the fallacies, the unacceptable behaviors too. She'd tapped her finger on the cards and told me it was time for me to go into the world and find my way again.
Then she'd fired me.
* * *
Ash proppedhimself against his doorway to his office, his back pressed to the jamb while he crossed his arms over his chest. He did this exact thing several times each day. He'd leave his desk, walk to the door, and say nothing while he settled into the Hot Boss pose.
I couldn't determine whether this was a performance for me or an innate mannerism not unlike a jaguar perching in a tree to study its prey in the most comfortable pose possible. Either way, I'd learned to pay this behavior little attention. I didn't spin my chair around to watch anymore. I didn't prompt him to speak. I stayed focused on my work until the last moment because the Hot Boss pose was the best and worst type of power play.
It was both best and worst because Ash was already in control here. There was no dispute in that matter and he didn't have to roll up his shirtsleeves or pace his office while on conference calls or station himself in the doorway to communicate his authority. It seeped out of him and scented the air. I could no sooner avoid it than hold my breath all day.
