Dania and the rest of the group had headed into town to hang out at the arcade. I told them I’d meet them there but had instead gone to the library to read.
I liked going to the school library after school. It was quiet and no one bothered me. I could read the books I didn’t dare let anyone know I was interested in. I was currently reading Jane Eyre. I liked how romantic Mr. Rochester was. Even though he was obviously hiding something. I loved getting lost in stories. It was a hell of a lot better than the shit life I had.
I needed an escape desperately.
Something about Flynn interested me.
Like my books, he was something different from everything else I knew.
We didn’t talk much. Sometimes he commented on my piercings or what I was wearing. He seemed a little too fixated on the colors I dyed my hair. He was definitely strange. But in a good way. He said what he wanted without worrying about consequences. He had no filter and though I’d never say it aloud, I appreciated that.
His honesty was nice, even when it hurt. It was better to hear the truth than sustained by a lie.
I watched him. I couldn’t help it. He would draw pictures in the margins of his notebooks, and they were amazing. Sometimes it was a building or a flower. Other times I noticed that he would draw me.
That made me feel something inside I had never felt before. It was warm and spread out from the center of my chest to my fingers and toes.
No one had ever drawn a picture of me before. He made me look beautiful. Was that how he saw me? As something beautiful?
It seemed unlikely. I was trash. Worthless. Ugly. I had been told that enough times to believe it.
But Flynn appeared to see something else.
“Hey!” I called out but Flynn kept walking. I found myself jogging after him.
“Hey!” I called again, and this time I noticed his steps quickened. Was he running away from me?
Not that I blamed him. I wasn’t nice to him. And Stu and Dania were downright cruel. I could admit that I felt bad when they teased Flynn. Because he didn’t deserve that.
No one did.
“Flynn, stop!” I yelled, reaching out to grab ahold of his arm. He whipped around to face me, pushing my hands away.
“Don’t touch me!” he screamed in my face, and I realized my mistake. Flynn Hendrick didn’t like to be touched. He hated it. I understood the feeling. When touch only led to something bad, it was easier to avoid it all together.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked, and I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I smiled. He made it easy to smile.
“Why would I be mad at you?” I asked him.
“You were frowning and your mouth looks mean. I thought that meant you were mad,” he said and I found myself smiling wider.
There was that honesty again. I consumed it hungrily.
So I walked home with him that day and he let me into his house. He gave me some of his mom’s homemade banana bread and we watched TV together.
And I smiled a lot.
For the first time in a long time, I was happy.
**
“Ellie!” Jeb called out, looking up when I walked into the convenience store.
After Flynn left for work I had spent the next few hours calling and following up with several places where I had submitted resumes, ignoring the twinge of mortification at being so blatantly pathetic. No one had much to tell me. Some seemed annoyed by my calls. Others were downright rude.
I suppressed the urge to tell them where to shove their shitty jobs. Call it character growth. Even though I was beginning to feel like I was banging my head against a wall.
A very hard, unyielding wall.
