Turn the World Upside Down

  I think it might be the first time in my life that I blush. He’s not saying he thinks I’m better than him, though maybe he does. He’s saying they’re special because they’re mine, and no other reason. It’s a different way than I’ve ever felt special before. Not family thinking I’m special because they sort of have to. This is personal. Real. This is Stray, and that makes it everything.

  My swirls continue but start looking better than they did a second ago. “You say things like that sometimes—no fear, like I said before. But other times, you’re more unsure than I am.”

  Stray starts working on drawing a pizza next to Scooby. It takes him a minute to respond. “Sometimes you pay attention to everything, other times you let so much slip by.”

  I stop drawing but still hold his warm arm. What do I let slip by? “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.” I frown.

  “I didn’t mean it as an insult. I just… you take responsibility for Bethany, but don’t blame the rest of us, even though we’re her friends the same as you.”

  My eyes squeeze close. I blamed him that day, even though I know it was wrong.

  “You tell me it’s not my fault every family who’s ever taken me in has given me back. You say I deserve someone to be there because I’m good, but then you blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault.”

  I bite back a groan. Holly is the last thing I want to talk about. The things I’ve done aren’t high on my list of exciting topics of conversation. That’s not what we’re supposed to be doing here. She didn’t come… she had the chance to see me, and she didn’t come. “Take off your shirt.”

  Stray cocks a brow at me. “Now you’re trying to get me naked instead of talking about it.”

  “Naked is more fun,” I try to tease, even though I’ve never been naked with another boy. I’d like to, though. He doesn’t take the bait. “Your arm is getting full. You’re drawing on your legs. I want to write on your chest.” When Stray still doesn’t move, I add, “Everyone does that, not just me. We all see ourselves differently than we see others.” But it’s true. Or maybe it’s not. All I know is how I feel, and really, how a person feels is all that matters. Emotions are a million times stronger than logic.

  He turns into the Stray from the stables that time he said he liked looking at me—all confidence, blue hair, and freckles. “Well, that’s not fair. You have to take yours off, if I do.”

  I have a feeling we wouldn’t be able to come up with a good excuse if we got caught in my bed together with our shirts off… but I don’t care. There’s nothing I care about except this moment. I want to live in it, live in each of them I can because there’s too much bad shit out there. I’m taking my moments where I can.

  My elbow pops when I pull my arm through my shirt. “Got hit with a baseball on it when I was eleven. It does that sometimes.” When I finish pulling it off, I toss it to the floor. Stray does the same with his.

  Watching him for a second, I try to figure out how we’re going to do this. Or maybe that’s an excuse and I just want my eyes on him. He has freckles on his shoulders. A little mole on his stomach. He’s thin, but I see the muscles moving under his skin.

  There are more scars here too. He has them everywhere. He’s been hurt a thousand times. Hurt with each cut. Hurt by more than just his cuts.

  “Pain on the outside makes the pain on the inside go away. It used to be worse. I’m getting better.” He looks down, embarrassed. “I was nine the first time. I got in trouble. The foster mom… she was a yeller. She wouldn’t stop. It made me hate myself. I had to let it out.”

  “That doesn’t let it out.” I shiver, suddenly cold, before reaching over and touching some of the scars on his chest. It makes me want to rage, not in the way I’ve done before. Not for me or really out of anger; maybe out of love. Because it’s not fair. He shouldn’t have to hurt.

  “We all hate ourselves in our own way. Or maybe it’s not always hate. We try to punish ourselves. This is my way, you have yours.”

  He’s right, and I know it, but I punished myself by giving up baseball and wrecking my school, not by mutilating myself.

  “What are you going to draw?” he asks.

  I don’t know…. All I do know is I want it all covered up, all the pain; I want to erase it. My foot is asleep, but I ignore the tingle as I move forward between Stray’s legs. Put my right leg over his left, sort of wrapped around him, so we’re as close as we can get. His right leg’s bent at the knee, his left one straight. He’ll still be able to draw on his inner thigh, and I have his chest waiting for me, a blank, rough canvas.

  We both get to work. I draw a heart over his heart—a big one, but it’s still probably not as big as his. I try to draw a horse on the right side of his chest, but it looks more like a deformed donkey. He’ll get the message.

  Then I add a baseball for me, and a rose for Rosie. My clarinet looks shitty, but again, I think he’ll get it. It’s then I realize I don’t know anything for Bethany. I never took the time to ask her what she liked. If I could go back, that’s what I would do.

  I write her name instead.

  When I look down to see what Stray is drawing now… I see the world. In this moment we’re the only two people living in it.

  “I’m all covered up,” he whispers.

  My heart jumps when there’s a noise in the hallway.

  Stray catches on before I do, scrambling out of bed, and out from under me. He jumps into the other one, ducking under the covers, and then I fall on my pillow right before the door opens.

  Mills pauses.

  So does my breathing.

  And then the door closes, and he’s gone.

  We both wait a minute, then two, then three and four before Stray asks, “Should I come back?”

  It’s late and my eyes hurt, but I don’t want to sleep tonight. Usually I’m hunting sleep; tonight I’m running from it. “Yeah.”

  The bed creaks when Stray gets up. He shoves Casey’s pillows under the blankets. There’s not a chance it looks like a person, but it works in the movies, so maybe there’s hope.

  I slide my blankets down and then climb under them. Stray steps up to the bed, pauses, and then gets in. Raising my arm, I put the blanket over our heads.

  “Hi.” It’s the stupidest thing to say, but it’s what comes out.

  “Hi.” He smiles. Then he reaches out, touches my arm. My skin is darker than his. He’s pale. His touch makes me feel luckier than I should be.

  It moves to my face next. Then my hair. “You’re beautiful,” Stray whispers, and I frown before shaking my head.

  “Boys aren’t beautiful. Hot maybe, but not beautiful.”

  When I take in the drawings on Stray, our friends and things that make them happy, the swirls and the world, all of it covering his pain, making something better, I realize I’m wrong. Boys can be beautiful. Even without the drawings, he is. “You are too.”

  “Sometimes I’m scared to touch you.” His breath ghosts across my face.

  “Why?”

  “When I was little… like six, I think, I lived with this family in a really nice house. The nicest house I’d ever seen. Even then I knew I didn’t belong there.”

  “Then it must not have been a very nice house,” I say. Maybe I should feel silly saying things like that to him, but I don’t.

  “Flirt.” He touches my chest next and I shiver. “They had this really cool glass horse. I loved it. It was all sorts of different colors—red, yellow, and blue. Lots of blue. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to play with it all the time, but they’d never let me. They said I’d break it. One time when the dad was at work and the mom was in the kitchen, I snuck it down. It was probably less than a minute later when I dropped it against a marble table. It shattered, and I realized they were right. I break beautiful things.”

  It’s not until Stray runs his thumb under my eye that I realize a tear came out. The first one I’ve cried since we found out what happened to Hol
ly.

  I said earlier I didn’t think people my age could fall in love. I was wrong. I’m so in love with him, I want to crawl inside him and live there. If I could take away every scar he has, I would. I would live his pain if it meant he didn’t have to.

  Leaning closer, I press my lips to his. Stray moans, and then I pull him toward me, deepening the kiss. His skin is warm and mine’s on fire. I ache and feel tingling like I do when I’m hiding in my room alone, with my hand wrapped around myself. My body starts going haywire—needy, horny, crazy as we kiss and kiss and kiss. His lips feel perfect; they’re soft, with just the right amount of pressure. I wonder if he feels the same about me. If I’m kissing too hard or too soft or too much. But I can’t be. If I’m feeling this good, he has to be as well. We’re probably the best two people at kissing each other than anyone else in the world.

  “I love you,” I tell him when I pull away.

  “I love you too.” But he almost sounds sad to say it. Like the words are another cut in his skin.

  “You don’t break me; you make me stronger.”

  “No one can do that for someone else, even if we think they can.”

  He can’t be right. I refuse to believe that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  DR. HARRISON leans back in her chair. “I was proud of your discussion with your mom. Mrs. Spencer and the counselors say you’re doing much better, Hunter. That you’re participating more in activities. You have a close group of friends here, which is fantastic. You’re interacting more in group therapy, but they all say the same thing, that you’re not digging very deep. You still haven’t talked about the problems that brought you here. This doesn’t work without you.”

  “But I’m feeling better.” And it’s true. We all know I wanted nothing to do with this place when I got here. I’m still not sold on all the group therapy shrink crap that they preach, but I feel better than I have in a long time.

  “That’s good. I like hearing that. I want you to feel better, but my fear is that you’re just putting a Band-Aid over the problem and hoping it will heal. This isn’t something you can mask, something that you just hope will go away. Think of it like… well, you played baseball, right? If you broke a bone, would a Band-Aid help? A cast might not even do it. You could need surgery and physical therapy. This is your mental physical therapy.”

  I totally can’t help but wonder how long it took her to come up with that. It’s the perfect speech meant to hit me where it matters. Make me see the light and want to get back into the game. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to forget about it. If feeling better is the end game, then does it matter how I do it?” There. Take that.

  She gives me a sad smile. “No, feeling better isn’t the end game. Healing is.”

  Oh….

  “Let’s talk about Bethany. You blamed yourself when she left. Why?”

  “Because she’s my friend, and I kinda knew something was wrong, but I didn’t push the issue. I let her down. Haven’t you ever not wanted to let down a friend before?” I cross my arms, thinking I’d rather be doing just about anything other than this.

  “Of course, but you took responsibility when there was no way it was your fault. You didn’t make her bulimic. You can’t control her parents. They made their decisions, and there’s nothing you could have done to change that.”

  “Well, they made a stupid decision! They don’t even care about what she wanted. They never paid attention to her anyway. We did.” That quickly, I feel worse. No, ripping off the Band-Aid isn’t a good thing. It makes the wounds fresh.

  “It’s good that you loved her. You can still love her. You were all good friends to her, but her parents love her too.”

  Well, they have a shitty way of showing it. Would she try to tell me that my dad loved Holly and me? Because he couldn’t. Not after what he did. “I don’t want to talk about Bethany.”

  “Do you blame yourself for what happened to Holly? Is that what you were holding in during family therapy?”

  The urge to vomit hits me, crawls up my throat. I should have known. Should have protected her. I shouldn’t have left her.

  “Duh.”

  “Why?”

  Because she asked me to stay. It wasn’t the first time she asked, and I left her anyway. I got mad at her when she said she didn’t like Dad. I didn’t let her feel like she could come to me.

  “Okay, so you don’t want to tell me that. Have you told your mom why? Or Holly?”

  I lurch to my feet. “What right do I have to burden them with my shit?”

  She doesn’t call me on the language, just continues leaning back in her leather chair like it’s any other day, not like she’s ripping me open and prodding at my insides.

  “It’s not a burden. They’re your family and they love you. You wouldn’t have felt like it was a burden for Bethany to tell you her problems, would you?”

  “No.” We could have fixed it if Bethany would have told us. We could have told her it would backfire. “That’s different. We were Bethany’s friends. I lived with, and played baseball with, and defended the man who hurt Holly.” My hands ball into fists. It’s there, the urge to hit something. To hit everything. To demolish things until they feel the way I do.

  “Hunter… don’t do this. Open your eyes. You’re okay. We’re just talking.”

  My eyes are closed? She’s right, so I open them. Try to take a deep breath. To demolish things until they feel the way I do.

  The same as Stray, only he cuts himself.

  I feel it there, the metal in my pocket that I took from him the other night. I should have gotten rid of it. I don’t know why I haven’t.

  “That was good. You brought yourself back. The last time you looked like that in my office, you hit something. You need to let it all out—all that guilt and anger. It’s the only way. You’re going to have to let someone in. You need to be able to talk to your family, because if you can’t, it’s always going to be there between the three of you. It’s the only way to get closure.”

  I turn my back to her. How can I admit to my mom that I left Holly when she asked me to stay?

  From there Dr. Harrison talks to me about sleeping, medication, yada yada. The topics are much easier, and she doesn’t call me on the fact that I lean against the couch with my arms crossed, ready to go.

  She wants me to tell Holly how I feel. The thing is, if I tell her, I know she’ll forgive me when she shouldn’t. Not everything is forgivable.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ROSIE DOESN’T sit on the other side of me when we eat meals anymore. She sits next to Casey. It makes sense, evening out the table. Two and two. Not leaving Casey on the other side alone. It’s not something I ever would have thought about doing, but Rosie does.

  “You guys get to have all the fun. I’m still jealous Casey became a rebel and swapped places with Stray the other night. Think they’ll let me move into the boys’ dorms? I can share a room with Stray. It’s not like they have anything to worry about since the most him and I would do together is talk about how hot Hunter is.” She winks at me, and I shake my head.

  “Funny.” But it’s not something I really thought about before. With Bethany gone, she’s the only girl in our group. She’s alone on the other side of the building with girls like Megan, who call her a slut.

  “Sorry, I don’t think they’ll go for that logic, Rosie.” Stray reaches over and grabs a strawberry off her plate and pops it into his mouth.

  “You’ve been awfully cheery lately.” She eyes Stray, then grabs the neck of his shirt and pulls it down. Fading blue and black marker lines are there, close to disappearing. “Your chest too? And what the hell is that—a donkey? You two had more fun that night than I realized. I thought I was the only one who got to draw on you, Stray.” Rosie turns to Casey. “Wanna make out so we don’t feel left out?”

  Casey chokes on whatever is in his mouth—maybe he’s just choking on his own tongue—and we all laugh. Casey’s brown cheek
s redden. No offense to Casey, but I don’t think he could handle Rosie. Hell, I don’t think any of us could.

  “Fine. You guys are all no fun.” She leans her head against Casey’s shoulder and then whispers, “Have any of you heard anything about Bethany? Who ratted her out? I’ve been trying to figure it out.”

  Casey drops his eyes, folding in on himself like he does. I squeeze my fork in my hand. Stray shakes his head and answers, “No.” I hope she’ll try to contact us. We don’t have her information, but she knows where we are. But if they sent her to another facility, maybe she can’t.

  “All we know is it’s a student,” Stray adds.

  That’s something I really want to know. I don’t care who they are; they had no right to tell on her. If someone was really worried they should have come to us, her friends, not the staff. I won’t let them get away with it either.

  “Let me know if you hear,” she says.

  “I’ll take care of it if we do.” My stomach suddenly feels full, so I set my fork down.

  Rosie responds quickly. “No, that’s me. I got it.”

  “I—”

  “No.” Before she can say anything else, breakfast is over, and it’s time for morning therapy.

  Stray reaches over and touches my arm. “She’s right, you know, we do always talk about how hot you are.” It’s an attempt to lighten the mood, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it works, if only slightly.

  “Yeah? You both think I’m hot?” I like Stray thinking that about me.

  “Now you’re fishing!” He gives me an animated eye roll before walking away. I can’t help but laugh before following Casey and Rosie out for therapy. Stray will be on his own, when before he would have had Bethany with him.

  I glance back and look at him once more. It’s a reflex now, to stuff my hand into my pocket and touch the piece of scrap metal there. It’s ragged, dirty. I wouldn’t want to think about what Stray could have given himself if he’d made himself bleed with it. What he could have put into his body because of his need to hurt.