Reclaiming the Sand

My stomach did a backflip. My entire life had been spent within the boundaries of West Virginia. I had only traveled outside the Wellsburg city limits when I had been taken to Mt. Hope after being remanded to the juvenile detention facility there.

I held my breath until we drove passed the Welcome to Virginia sign as though any moment I’d wake up and this would all have been a dream. I was terrified that I’d find myself shivering under my thin blankets in my crappy apartment. Fly

“Why are you making that noise?” Fly

I laughed. “I wasn’t aware I was making a noise,” I said.

“Yeah, it sounds like humming.”

I looked out the window as cars and trees and farms flashed in and out of view. Virginia didn’t look a whole lot different than West Virginia so far. Which was both comforting and disappointing.

“I guess I do that sometimes,” I answered.

“You used to do that in English class. I hated it,” Fly

If anyone else had said something like that to me, I would have been insulted. I would have gotten angry. I would have made sure that they regretted saying anything at all.

But Fly

“I won’t do it then,” I said.

“I don’t mind you doing it now. It doesn’t bother me. It bothered me then. But you weren’t very nice a lot of the time,” Fly

I sighed. “No I wasn’t. I was pretty awful,” I agreed.

“Why were you like that? You were my friend. You would come to my house and watch television and eat my mom’s banana bread. You said you liked me. Then you would call me names at school. You let your friends hit me. You watched them when they pushed me in the stream. It sucked.” His voice was deceptively flat. I knew that those particular memories had to make him angry.

Hell, they made me angry. Angry with the person I had been and the things I had done and allowed to be done to him.

“I was an ignorant, selfish, and shallow person, Fly

Fly

“I was mean to you a lot. I’m more sorry than you could ever know. You didn’t deserve that,” I said. I thought about the ways I had hurt him that he wasn’t even aware of. The heaviness of the truth weighed down on my shoulders and I knew I should tell him what I had done. The guilt threatened to eat me alive.

But I couldn’t. Not now. I was terrified he’d tell me to leave. That he’d never talk to me again. But I was just as terrified that he’d forgive me as he had done so many times before.

I wasn’t sure I could stomach that. I knew I hadn’t earned his forgiveness and I didn’t think I ever would.

Murphy poked his head up between the seats and sniffed my face. I scratched the back of his head. “I bought another Aqua Teen Hunger Force notebook. I still have it. It has a bunch of my drawings in it. It’s my favorite one. Maybe I could show it to you when we get back,” Fly

It took me several minutes to understand why he was telling me this. What was so significant about an Aqua Teen Hunger Force notebook?

Then I remembered.

I had gotten him an Aqua Teen Hunger Force notebook for his birthday. I didn’t have a whole lot of my own money back then. I had stolen money from my foster mom’s purse to buy it. She had slapped me in the face for that later and I remember having to wear heavy makeup to cover the bruise. But it had been worth it. I had been able to buy Fly

And then I had given it to him. After that I had told him I wouldn’t be his friend anymore.

I had always been my own worse enemy. I could never let myself be happy. So I wrecked the only thing that I had ever felt excited about. Fly

He had thrown the notebook I had taken a beating for into the stream and then he had run away. What he didn’t know was I had fished it out of the stream and taken it home, laying it across the radiator to dry.

After that I used it as a journal. It was the only thing I took with me to juvie.

I looked over at Fly

Because I didn’t want to admit how much I cared for the school freak?

Because I couldn’t trust my emotions around him? Because being numb was easier than feeling anything at all. Feelings brought pain and I had had enough pain for one lifetime.

Or was it because I was young and stupid and destined to push everyone away?

Every reason sucked because it had been a coward’s way out.

That had been a turning point for me. And not in a positive way. I had walked home from stomping on Fly

And he had gotten another Aqua Teen Hunger Force notebook. I knew exactly what he was trying to tell me by revealing that.

Fly

“I’d love to see it,” I said, my voice catching.

We were quiet for a long time after that, listening to the endless loop of The Cure’s Wish album. The two of us lost in memories that were too painful to share.

“Are you hungry?” Fly

“I could eat,” I said just as my stomach growled.

Fly

We laughed together. Mine low and raspy. Fly

Fly

We walked over to a picnic table situated in the middle of a small clump of trees. It was chilly and brusque but the air was refreshing.

“I’ll walk Murphy, you set out lunch,” I suggested. Fly

When Murphy was finished I walked back over to the table to find a sandwich, a bag of chips and a soda. I tied Murphy up to the leg of the bench and sat down.

“Thanks,” I said, picking up my sandwich and taking a bite. It was turkey and bacon, my favorite.

“You remembered,” I said.

“I remember everything about you. Even the stuff I wish I could forget,” he said simply and that popped my happy bubble with the weight of an age-old guilt. This time his honesty only served to remind me of the thousand ways I had failed him.

We sat in silence while we ate. When we were finished, Fly