“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?” D.C. asked, turning on the water of the bathtub.
“Because,” I adjusted myself as best I could to rinse out my hair, “it was weird.”
D.C. ran her fingers through my hair to help me, “You know your mom means well.”
“I know she does, but I’m so glad she’s gone. It was all way too stressful.”
“Did you tell her anything about you and Dave?” D.C. asked, massaging my scalp.
“What about me and Dave?”
“Well you know, his mother, Jeremiah, the singing, the sex…” her voice trailed off, searching my face for a response.
“The sex?” I said, blinking the water out of my eyes.
“Dave told me.”
“Told you what?” I choked on some of the water that was running down my face.
“About the thing with his mom…”
“What does that have to do with sex?”
“Please, Tayler,” D.C. used a cup to pour the water over my hair, “I know that you guys are screwing.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because Dave told me… You don’t have to pretend. I’m not going to be jealous or something. It’s always been an implied part of my relationship with Dave that-“
“Okay, for one thing,” I yelled, pushing the water and hair out of my eyes angrily, “you two do NOT have a relationship, unless you’ve suddenly fallen for him. You both have made it implicitly clear that there never were any feelings involved. Secondly, we did NOT have sex. I know what Dave told you, and I know that you’re assuming we had sex when we actually didn’t. It was all totally innocent.”
D.C. looked pained. She took her hands off my head, wiped them on a towel and stood up. Then she spit out, “I don’t call getting naked and sleeping with someone innocent.” She walked out of the room.
“Bitch!” I yelled after her. I sat, miserably shaking with painfully violent anger, unable to get myself out of the tub. The cordless telephone was on the edge of the sink… close, but also too far to reach. I could move my legs now, but they felt all weak and pins-and-needly and painful when I put pressure on them. I started to cry. Not just crying, but sobbing. More than that even. As the water ran over my legs, I covered my face and shook as the tears streamed down my face. My whole body ached as I convulsed. I was so alone. The water wasn’t warm enough, and I got goose bumps all over my body. I finished rinsing my hair as I wept, compulsively wiping tears away as I wrung out my tresses.
I reached for the towel that was on the floor beside the tub and wrapped it around my hair, still sobbing. I could hardly breathe anymore. I was beginning to think that wasn’t a problem. What if I died? Who would come to my funeral? My mom, Heidi, my dad… Dave maybe? Jeremiah might cry because no one else loved him. D.C. would get arrested for leaving me there. Would Tay be there? Would he cry? Would anyone tell him? How would they call him to let him know I was dead? Would he find out months later when he came home? Would Zac or Ike cry? Would they remember me? Where were they?
The crying subsided for the simple reason that I had no more tears. I had been sitting in the tub for a very long time. I was cold and water-logged. My fingers were all pruny. I reached and reached for the telephone. I took the towel off my head and put it ob the floor under the sink. I threw a shampoo bottle at it, but I missed, and so I threw a bar of soap. It took me about three more shower items before I hit the phone and knocked it onto the towel on the floor. I picked it up and through tear-logged eyes, I dialed a familiar number. “Dave?” I hiccupped.
“Tay?”
“Dave,” I repeated. My tears were replenished, and they spilled over, hot and prickly, down my cheeks.
“Tay, what’s the matter?”
“Dave, can you….” I paused to hiccup again.
“I’ll be right over,” he said, his voice soft. I turned off the phone and let it fall to the floor. I tried to gain my composure. I lay back in the tub, which was empty, because I hadn’t plugged up the drain when the water was running. My hair was in a strange stage between wet and dry where it was sticking to my face and was all tangly and knotty. The cold porcelain gave me chills up and down my spine. I don’t know how long I lay there, cold, wet, and miserable. I heard knocking on the door downstairs before long. I didn’t even have to shout. He knew I couldn’t open the door. D.C. probably left the door unlocked anyway. Once he was in the house, the sounds of my sobs echoing off the cold tile walls lead him to me. I don’t know how he reacted. By then I’d wadded myself up into a ball and hidden my head in my hands.
“Tay,” he said, speaking softly.
“I… I… She dyed my hair,” I stammered out, shivering. I’m sure I looked pathetic in my soaking white t shirt with a smudgy black ring around the neck and down the back from hair dye remnants, no bra, a pair of flowery underwear, and tear stained eyes.
“Where did she go?” he asked, going out into the hall momentarily to get a towel from the linen closet.
“We had a fight,” I hiccupped.
“And she left you here?”
I didn’t reply as he lifted me out of the tub and held me to his warm body, “I want to die,” I whispered into his chest, as if maybe his heart could hear me. It thudded back at me rhythmically. “I want to die,” I repeated, wishing my heart could beat it out in Morse code to his… to make him understand. He was laying me down in my bed… I knew I was probably getting it soaking wet. He pulled the blanket up over me and then went searching through my closet. He pulled out a sweatshirt and brought it over to me.
“Put this on,” he said, trying to get me to open my eyes. I was still fixing on making my heart beat out Morse code. Breathe fast, beat fast… S.O.S. “Tay,” he shook me, “Put this on.”
“I want to die.”
“Put this on.”
I found myself obeying him. I reached up, and pulled the sweatshirt out of his hand. I took off my damp, translucent t shirt, not knowing or caring if he was seeing me naked, and pulled on the sweatshirt.
“How could she leave you here?” it may be the maddest I ever saw him. He was so mad that he wasn’t even shaking or cursing or throwing things. He just stood there at the foot of my bed, his hands balled in white-knuckled fists, his jaw locked as he stared out my window.
“Come here,” I whispered, but he heard me. He knelt down by my bed, his face close to mine. He didn’t say anything. “You need to listen to me.”
“What is it, baby?” his brow was knit concernedly.
“You don’t have to like what I’m gonna say, but please… Hear me.”
“I will,” he caressed the side of my face.
“D.C. loves you.”
“What? She does not! I told you, there were no feelings involved in all that.”
“Dave, listen to me.”
“Tay, listen…”
“Dave,” I said seriously, “Just take it for what it’s worth. I just want you to know that D.C. is most definitely in love with you. Not even like, she wants to date you, but she is truly, really in love with you.”
“That’s not true!”
“I just wanted you to know that that will be the end of us.”
He looked down, taking his hand off my face.
