Chapter Twenty-two. The weeks fly by faster than any I can remember

The weeks fly by faster than any I can remember. The days grow shorter, beginning their descent into winter. They have been for a while, though the change was imperceptible at first. But now the October sun seems lazier somehow, like a teenager hitting the snooze button for longer and longer intervals now that the novelty of the first days of school has worn off. Old Man Winter looms large on the horizon, and the sun seems to recognize the inevitability of it all. Not that it makes the workday any shorter. The only acknowledgment any of us make to the shrinking of the day is to start loading kerosene lanterns into the truck along with our shovels and picks. Once again, I marvel at Buck’s resourcefulness. He has managed to stockpile a little bit of everything, including kerosene. It won’t last forever, but it’s good enough for now.

We have made tremendous progress in our digging, at least according to Dunk. I don’t talk to him much at first, just wanting to focus on the work, but he chats me up anyway, either ignoring my lack of response or simply not caring. The kid is completely mule headed. And yet it isn’t all that long before I am chatting back to him, at least as far as the occasional grunt or clipped sentence can be considered a form of speech. That doesn’t last long, either, and pretty soon we are talking, really talking, mostly about stupid things like whether Joan Baez’s version of “Blowin’ In the Wind” is better than Dylan’s, and who would take an imaginary World Series between my beloved Cubbies and the White Sox. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around Dunk being a White Sox fan. Even the dastardly Cardinals would be better.

I don’t know whether it is exhaustion or something else, but with each passing day, each turn of the shovel, I burn off a little more of my anger. My guilt and the fire it had sparked within me are not gone but have lessened some, fading into white noise that drowns out what is driving me. I sink into the work, into just trying to contribute toward building something better. I don’t let myself think about who I am trying to build that something better for, or whether that includes myself. I’m not ready to think about such things.

By the fifth day, I am taking my lunches with the rest of the crew instead of going off on my own. I don’t say much, but they seem to respect that and let me be. I think Dunk wishes I would join in their camaraderie, but I’m not ready for that yet, either. While my guilt may have eased in its intensity, it is still there, smoldering beneath the ashes, along with the self-inflicted punishment that comes with it. Talking to Dunk is one thing, but letting myself be human is something entirely different.

Of course, at the end of the workday I leave the Taylor I am on the crew behind and revert to the Taylor who is fully apart. I do not take my meals in the barn, cannot let myself join the others for fear that if I do, I will come undone. If I take just one step into that room, see Dunk waving me over or Buck sitting there grinning or Kate looking at me with those eyes of hers, my self-imposed exile will crumble to dust. They don’t need my company, and I don’t deserve theirs. Each night, meals magically appear on a tray outside my room, and I imagine the disappointment on Dunk’s face as he lays the tray outside my door. Still, he doesn’t speak of it, for which I am grateful.

We go on that way for a while, and I lull myself into thinking I can go on that way forever, that everyone will accept this is the way things are and need to be. Sometimes, thoughts of Kate drift into my mind. Holding her hand. The sweet sound of her laughter. Arguing with her even when I feel like agreeing. The sunlight glinting off her hair in the afternoon sun. Kissing her in the barn. I let myself relive each memory, allow them to consume my senses, until I can feel nothing besides the softness of her skin, hear nothing but the richness of her voice. Then I push them away, rejecting them as I have her.

I take to having my daily shower in the evening instead of the morning, trying to wipe off the grime of the day’s work, figuring there isn’t much point in bathing in the morning only to be fouled with dirt and sweat within an hour. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that my new shower time is smack dab in the middle of dinner, which conveniently allows me to wash and be safely back behind the door to my room until lights out, enabling me to avoid our little community in the process.

That is the theory, anyway. As with most theories, it’s only right until it’s debunked.

One night, upon returning to my room, I bump into Kate. It is actually more of a slamming into than a bump, as I am working my towel through my damp hair and thus don’t see her standing in front of my door. I’m not used to having to watch out for obstacles in the hallway, especially not of the human variety.

The collision sends her stumbling backward, straight into the tray of food she has just finished leaving in front of my door. I stare at her, wide eyed, my brain caught somewhere between absorbing the shock of seeing her for the first time in weeks and apology for practically mowing her down. I see the remnants of my dinner, green peas still wobbling back and forth on the floor.

“Sorry,” she says, the sound of her nervousness tearing at my heart. She bends down quickly and begins shoveling the food from the floor back onto the tray. “I can be such a klutz.”

I stand there, watching her clean up my mess, the signals from my brain refusing to connect with the rest of my body even as my mind screams at me.

Help her, you moron!

Something clicks and I drop to my knees, silently helping her collect the rest of my ruined dinner. She doesn’t look at me, but I hear her breath catch. Little globs of mashed potatoes cling to her fingers, and I hold out my still-damp towel to her. She stands, wiping her hands clean while I finish dealing with the tray.

“You’ve been bringing me dinner?” I ask, finally looking at her. It isn’t really the question on my mind, but it seems safer somehow.

“Sometimes,” she admits quietly. “Duncan and I take turns.” She shrugs, as if to say it is no big deal, but I know it isn’t. To her or to me.

She looks down at my hands and offers me the cleanest part of the towel. “Looks like you might need this back. Wouldn’t want to be caught hitchhiking across the galaxy without your towel.”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling a little at the reference. I take the offering and finish cleaning myself up, then throw the soiled towel down on top of the tray. “I’ll take this all back to the barn later. Let them throw my towel in with the rest of the kitchen wash.”

“I can take it. If you want?” It is such an innocent question, so seemingly innocuous that I almost miss it. Almost. But it hangs in the air, full of promise, held aloft by the hope that underlies it.

If I want. If I want. Of course I want. Many things.

“I’ll take care of it,” I say brusquely, rejecting her offer and, along with it, her. My rejection is not lost on her.

“Oh.”

One simple word, not even a word really, and yet it is like a branding iron to my heart, which will now be forever scarred by her disappointment. The pain of it hardens in my veins, fusing the iron within each blood cell until it forms a shield between what I want and what I need to do.

Be strong, Taylor. Do what’s right. For once in your pitiful life.

I square my shoulders and raise my shield, and I stare her down as if she is merely a stranger, an annoying gnat circling my head, not even worth the bother of swatting at.

“Well, I…”

She searches for some sign this isn’t the end, but I refuse to let her find it. She swallows whatever words would come next and turns away so quickly I think she might break into a run. She doesn’t. She is too strong for that, too proud to show how I have wounded her. But I know.

As she walks away, it is a dagger scraping against my ribs, sticking out of my chest with my fingers still wrapped around its hilt. I have only myself to blame.

I stay in my doorway, staring down that hallway long after she has left it, clutching the doorjamb until my fingers turn white to keep myself from running after her. Eventually, when the voices of the dorm’s other residents start to filter in from outside, I scoop up the tray and retreat into my room. Once the door is safely shut behind me, I look down at the ruined tray, and my hand starts to shake. I barely make it over to the desk before the tray slips from my hand, clattering down onto the wood.

I sink down onto my bed, still staring at that damn tray and all it represents. Even in sleep the image follows me, screaming at me to fix it, to make it better somehow. But there is no way to make it better, and that wretched thought haunts me until morning.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31