Sentences. Words. Letters. Symbols devoid of all meaning. Devoid of everything. The white screen glowing behind them, illuminating her young face. She's been reading for hours, since this morning really, or maybe it was last night. Maybe, the night before. She can't really tell. Not anymore. Time seems to stand still, but also pass so quickly; getting away from her mercilessly.
"Zoey?" A soft knock on the door. She takes a moment to respond. A moment to compose herself, to pretend she sees something in the text; anything but emptiness.
"Come in." She tries. She really does. To make her voice sound like it used to. She tries; to keep it from breaking. From reaching that pitch, just slightly higher than normal; that tone that signals weakness, that signals pending brokenness. She tries and she almost succeeds. Others might miss it, but not Liv.
"What you doing?" She could ask her what's wrong, but she already knows. She knows that the fact that she can walk just fine, but can't dance is killing her; it's tearing her apart in ways that they can't possibly understand. She knows that the fact that she can feel the music, but not express it is paralyzing her. That the fact that she can't disappear for hours in movement, until she finds herself, becoming one again, is choking her, making her suffocate. She knows she feels trapped and has no idea how to get out. She knows and she can't help. She knows that the only thing that will is time, time to process. So she doesn't ask. Instead she smiles and kisses her temple. Instead she lets her feel loved.
"Nothing much." She darts her eyes. She doesn't look up. No. Not because she's afraid she'll cry; she won't. But because she can't handle the way she looks at her, like she's broken. Like she's a project, something to be fixed, someone to be helped. The way she looks at her, only seeing the brokenness. "I'm just reading stuff for the debate." She gives her mom a weak smile, without ever really looking up. It's just lips curving upwards, but the light never reaches her eyes.
"You should go to bed. Tomorrow's a big day." She kisses her again, her lips lingering for a moment, as she pulls the girl's head to her stomach; bending slightly to hold her closer – to hold more of her. Words, words fail her. Words have been failing her; but touch – touch is a way for her to show love; to speak without ever really saying anything. The girl just nods, her cheek against the cream cashmere; her eyes closed; she doesn't need to see, or to hear, she just needs to feel.
Her mom leaves and she goes back to scrolling through the pages; the pages of medical trials, of research done across the globe; doctors' biographies; through blogs of success stories, and those of horror. She is preparing for tomorrow. She checks her itinerary for the last time and falls asleep trying to memorize the map.
Months, months of reading instead of sleeping, reading instead of eating, reading instead of living – months of holding on to a dream, not even a distant possibility. Months, but she's not ready to give up. Months of holding on to hope, after everyone had moved on.
Her shoulders a straight line; her hips perfectly aligned. She moves her legs. Foot out first. She feels the muscles. The way her toes curl and then the arch of her foot, as she pushes, and pushes, until it hurts; until it's better than it was ever before. Just a little bit better. The leg just a little bit straighter, just a little bit longer; just a little bit higher. The pain of muscles being strained. The power. The high. The adrenaline of her mind beating her own body. The feeling of music. The notes matching her heartbeat; her fingertips feeling the air, the lightness of it, the coolness of it. She jumps. Her heels leaving the floor; her toes pushing off. She jumps, up; she flies. She doesn't fall.
She jumps. She's free. Free, until she wakes up.
It's always the same dream. Never the stage, always the studio. Bolero; the soft thuds of the snare drums filling her up. It's enough. Just her, dancing. The music and her body being one, that's enough. No glitz, no audience, nothing and no one else. Just her, just dance. And she always wakes up when she jumps. She never lands. Instead, it's always a crash.
She barely eats her breakfast. She plays with her food, cutting it up in smaller pieces, re-arranging it, sipping on her tea occasionally; everything, but actually eating. She's not hungry. She hasn't been hungry in months. Hungry for food, for learning, for love – she hasn't been hungry, not for a while, not for life. Without dancing, all the other stuff, the things she loved, they fade, incomparable.
"Zo, you haven't eaten much." He says as she starts to get up. A tone in his voice letting her know he expects an answer.
"I just wasn't hungry. I'm too excited." The thing about her, she is a terrible liar. She has learned how to control her voice to perfection; she has learned how to mask her face, but her eyes, her eyes are always a giveaway. And now, now they dart across the room, burning a hole in the back wall.
He can tell, he knows that she's lying, but he doesn't what she's hiding. "Today's a big day. It's a new school, new people; it's a change. So I get the excitement, but I'd still like you to finish your breakfast."
She finally looks at him, panicking. She looks at Liv, pleading. "I don't have time." Her train is in an hour and she needs to get there; she can't be late.
"You have plenty of time to finish your breakfast. Your school is ten minutes away and doesn't start for another hour. You'll be fine." There's finality in his voice, a tone that tells her to sit down and eat. But she doesn't give up; she's clutching on to straws.
She looks at Liv, her eyes wide, her lip trembling. She knows she'll give in. She has been, since the accident. She's been letting her off the hook; she's been pacifying, instead of parenting her. "Mom," she says it in a soft tone, a tone she knows will strike a chord, "I just want to get there early, so I can figure out the building." She lets it hang for a moment and then a quiet "Please," that she knows will seal the deal.
"Go get ready." And she gets up from where she was sitting, "I'll pack this so that you can have it on your way." The girl turns around and smiles, uttering a quick "thanks mom" before heading to her room. She can hear the voices rising in the kitchen; she can hear them fighting again; but for the first time in months she doesn't feel guilty about it; for the first time she feels like she can fix it, if she can just get to her meeting. She can fix herself, and that will fix them.
Her phone rings. Dr. Reston's office. Zoey's there. And she can't breathe. Her mind is racing. She calls Fitz. She offers to come with her, but she says no, she'll do it. She doesn't remember the drive; she just remembers trying to figure it out – how she got there, how she got an appointment; when; why she lied; why didn't she trust them enough? She gets there and she's crying; her small frame swallowed up by the big leather chair. They told her they couldn't do it; they told her the same thing that they told them and it broke her, once again. She holds her until she calms down; she holds her – lost for words, for what to do. She just holds her. They get to the car. Silent. Drive back. Silence. She pulls into the driveway, keeping her hands on the wheel, tapping her fingers for a moment, before turning the engine off. She stares ahead, refusing to look at the girl; her puffy eyes and the dried trails of tears, too much. "Kitchen."
As they come in, he stands up from the stool at the counter, his eyes darting between them, finally settling on Liv. "What happened?"
She inhales, drops her purse on the counter, laying her palms flat on top of it – the coolness soothing; steadying – everything spinning less violently. "She contacted him a month ago, so she's been lying to us for a month." Zoey's just looking at the floor; tears rolling down her cheeks silently. "She pretended she was me, to get an appointment, because he wouldn't have agreed to see her again without parental consent." She exhales loudly, dropping her head; her chin almost touching her chest.
"Zo what were you thinking?" He asks softly, the gentleness of his tone surprising.
"I just wanted to meet him. I thought if I did I could get him to operate on me; I could get in on the trial." She manages to choke it out, her unsteady voice breaking up the loud sobs. "He helped this girl in Maryland. And this kid in Chicago. I just wanted him to help me too." She trails off, before "I thought he could." There is something so broken about her voice, something so devastating about the utter lack of hope.
"But, Zo, we told you there was no way. We have been looking into this, into him, into everything." He says softly, looking into her eyes, pleading.
"You just don't like the risks!" She fires back, the tears still falling, but her voice is strong, anger masking the fear, the guilt.
"Of course we don't." Liv shoots back, finally lifting her head, blinking furiously trying to keep the tears at bay. "You can walk now, your leg is fully functional. You can have a regular life-"
"I don't want a regular life. I want to dance."
"But you can't." He says it and she just shakes her head; Liv uttering a quiet, "Fitz," pleading with him. But he ignores it; she needs to hear it. "You can't dance again Zo. You can't. You just can't."
"Stop saying that!" She just shakes her head, more violently, as if doing it keeps the words at bay, as if not hearing them makes them untrue.
He walks over to her, wrapping her in his arms, burying her head in his chest; the tears soaking his shirt. He just keeps repeating, "You can't," and "It's over." She just sobs into his chest; her arms wrapped around him; her hands clutching his shirt. He picks her up in his arms and carries her up to her room. He lays her down on her bed, lying next to her – her head in the crook of his neck; the tears still falling, slowly rolling down her cheeks, almost lazily; almost resigning. He just draws little circles on her back and occasionally kisses the top of her head. The tears stop, but they still stay like that for a while – him holding her and her holding on to him. "I'm sorry."
He just nods his head, then looks down at her face, "I know, but this can't go on. You can't spend your life chasing an impossible dream Zoey. It's too big of a waste; you have too much to share with the world to hide away."
She speaks after a brief pause, her voice quiet, almost a whisper, "But I'm not good at anything else. Ballet was all I was ever good at."
He lifts her head from his chest and props himself up slightly. She needs to see him when he tells her this, she needs to believe him. "You are amazing at so many things, but you always focused on one. You are so smart. You are the smartest person I know, well maybe after Cy," and she chuckles lightly at that, "you could do anything. You could be the captain of the debate team, or the mathletes, or a film society. You could easily get into any school in the country to do whatever you wanted, if you set your mind to it. You just have to figure out what you want to do Zoey. And I know that ballet was your thing, and you were amazing at it, but this is an opportunity, a chance to find out what else makes you happy. It's a chance to be great at other things."
"I could be the president." She says, a soft smile playing on her lips; she's not joking. There's a glimmer in her eyes, a glimmer he hasn't seen in a while, in months.
"Yes you could be." And she lays her head back on his chest. "Did I ever tell you that my dad wanted me to be the president; he raised me to be the perfect candidate. I probably could have made it."
Her eyes widen in surprise, "What happened?"
"I met your mom," he chuckles as her confused expression, "and she gave me the courage and strength to be a writer instead. I know you miss dancing, but I also know that more than that you're scared. You're scared of going from being great at something, to being average. But, the thing is Zoey, you can never be average, because you are so extraordinary. You will be great at something, but that's not the most important thing. The most important thing Zo, is being happy."
"That was deep." She says grinning, but it fades away quickly; her face serious once again. "Are you and mom going to be OK? I know it's my fault that you've been fighting and that she's so sad, but I'll be OK, so you guys will be OK too, right?"
He hates it. That they've been fighting. That she's noticed. But more than that, he hates the insecurity in her voice, the plea; he hates the guilt she feels.
"It's not your fault." He tries to sound firm, to make her hear the truth. "We've just been… A lot happened. The accident… It just-" Damn-it, his voice sounds anything but confident. He sounds as confused and as lost as he feels; he sounds terrified. "A lot happened, and it's been tough, for everyone, including your mom. But she'll get there; she'll be better. She just wants you to be happy." She just nods her head, but doesn't look up. She doesn't know if she can do it; if she can be happy for her mom. As if reading her thoughts he repeats, once more, "She'll be OK Zo. And none of this, none of it is our fault. And you, you can't fix it. You shouldn't be fixing it." She nods again, but this time she gives him a weak smile, as well. He gets up, but pauses at the door. "Dinner is in an hour. You will be coming down and eating with us. You are grounded for a month, we'll discuss the details over dinner." She shoots up, to protest, but he cuts her off, "Zoey, you lied to us, you skipped school, and you went to Boston on your own. We are not negotiating this. You are grounded. And this, you lying and going behind our backs – it is never happening again. Clear?" His voice is strong. Confident. Parental.
She just smiles, "OK, dad." It just came out. And they both grin – he is, he has been, for a while.
He comes out and she's sitting next to the door, her back against the wall. He gives her a hand and pulls her up. "Thank you for that." He just nods his head as they walk down the stairs. "But we can't ground her. There's no need. She gets that what she did was wrong; she's not doing it again. We're not grounding her."
He walks to the other side of the kitchen, leaning against the counter. "No. We are grounding her. We are doing this Liv. We are doing it, and we are doing it my way. I let you handle this, I let you do it your way, because I thought it would help; help her, help you; but it's not. So now, now it stops. You handling things by letting the time pass ends here." She opens her mouth to protest, but he doesn't give her a chance. "She needs boundaries. She's a good kid, a great kid, but her world got shattered and she needs boundaries. She needs us to stop walking on eggshells around her, and looking at her like she's broken, treating her like she's broken. She is a child and she needs to be treated like one. She isn't you, she actually needs human contact." He stops instantly; regret momentarily creeping in. She just looks at him, hurt, more than angry.
"What does that even mean?" Her voice is breaking and all he wants is to walk over and hold her. But he stays there, he stays away, giving them both space. He needs to say it; there are things to be said.
"You swim for hours each day. You stay late at work. You do everything you possibly can to make sure you have no time to breathe, let alone think. You're drowning and you won't talk to me about it. You say you need time, I say that's fine, and then you completely shut me out. You won't tell me what you're thinking, let alone what you're feeling. And that's fine, if you can't talk to me about it, but you have to talk to someone. Whatever you're feeling is eating you up alive."
"I feel guilty, OK? I feel guilty. I feel guilty all the time. For buying Karen that car, for letting Zo fool around, instead of wearing a seat-belt; for taking so long to get to her, for not being able to get her out earlier. I feel guilty about her leg, and about what it did to Karen, and I feel guilty about losing the baby." It's the first time she's ever actually said it; actually mentioned it. "I fell guilty."
He starts walking over to her, but she puts her hand up, she needs space; she can't be in his embrace; she needs a moment to just breathe her own air – even as it is, too thick and too heavy. "I saw the way your face fell. When the nurse said it. You wanted it. You wanted that baby. And I lost it." And her voice cracks, revealing the open wounds below the surface.
He just shakes his head, pushing her guilt away – he can't believe he let her think that. "Liv, my face fell because you were hurting, because you were in pain and because I could see the way it hurt you. I could see the way your eyes shut the moment she said; how you tried not to cry; I could see the regret tearing you up and that, that is why my face fell. And yeah, I want another baby at some point, but it had nothing to do with that. My face fell, because you were hurting. You didn't lose the baby. We did. But the saddest part of it, the saddest part, was the way you were hurting." She slowly brings her hand down and he walks towards her. Slowly. So, very ,slowly. Giving her time with each step, to adjust to him being in her space. Giving her time to change her mind, to keep him at bay. She doesn't. She just steps into his embrace, breathing in his scent.
"I'm sorry I pushed you away." She murmurs into his chest.
"Just don't do it again."
She just nods. But she will – she knows it and so does he. She will push him. She will fight him. She will fight feeling. Not because she doesn't love him; but because she does. Because she still, after all these years, thinks that her emotions, her imperfections break people. Even in his embrace, even now, she can't take all of his love; she can't; because somewhere, under wounds and the scarred surface, she still believes she has nothing to give.
They have dinner. They talk and she eats; suddenly hungry. She washes the dishes – a part of her punishment. The other part: having to join five different clubs. She does her debate prep, jotting down arguments furiously, the words finally full of meaning. Her mom kisses her goodnight and she drifts off to sleep, with a faint smile.
She dances again that night. She lands her jump. And she wakes up, finally ready to fly.
This one was tough to write. It basically cost me two packs of biscuits, three rice-crackers, a whole lot of grapes and a couple of bananas. I'm a stress eater lol But, really, your comments on the last chapter were so lovely that I was terrified of messing this one up. So I really hope this didn't disappoint.