Kaleidoscope (19 page)

“Oh, I don't know,” I stammered. “I don't think--”

Austin's twinkling laugh interrupted me once again. “Relax, I'm still just messing with you. You need to calm down...eventful week or not, stress is a huge killer.”

“Yeah, that's what they tell me.”

Austin gently bumped me with his shoulder, making me lose my footing for a moment. I raised my eyebrow at him, accepting his challenge, and bumped him back before I looked down at my feet again. This time, I felt myself smiling.

“See, I knew I could make you laugh,” he declared, beaming a smile of his own.

“But you didn't...you just made me smile.”

“Oh whatever, close enough.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Austin's house differed greatly from my own—it appeared smaller at first because it lacked a second story. The living room was smaller than ours and only had space for two loveseats instead of a full-size sofa, but the kitchen had ample space and had been decorated in bright, cheerful colors, making it seem even larger. The house did also have a basement where Austin's room was located. It was situated in the back, accessible only after traipsing through a partially completed laundry room area.

I took in every detail as he led me downstairs. The entire house was silent and much darker than I thought it should be, considering the time of day. I didn't mind it though—the solitude was almost comforting. It felt like being in a cave that disconnected me from the rest of the world in the most literal sense. Only this time, I wasn't by myself. I was with Austin.

His room was even darker than the rest of the house because it was only illuminated by a small, rectangular window near the top of the furthest wall which allowed only a small amount of light to filter in.

“Sorry about that...here,” he said, reaching past me to flick the light switch on the wall.

Now that I could see things properly, it was clear Austin had pasted his personality into every available space of the small, rectangular room. A desk sat parallel to a smaller bed on one side, and they were both surrounded by wall shelves housing a variety of knick-knacks and books. A few of them appeared to be cooking-related, but a few books amongst them had been authored by people I recognized—Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King, and Mark Twain were some of the first that popped out at me.

As Austin gently urged me forward with his hand in the small of my back, I stepped further into the room. The most defining feature had to be the plethora of artwork on the walls. I'd never seen so many pictures in one room! Some of them hung in frames—those adorned  the side of the room opposite the bed and desk, above a black futon couch—and some of them were simply thumb-tacked to the wall. There appeared to be an even number of both.

I stepped towards the wall of framed paintings and drawings, and the realistic and somewhat impressionist style of one smaller image seemed familiar to me. The subject, a young woman in a red winter coat, stood by herself against the dark silhouette of a forest of trees in the background. She didn't look frightened though; rather, she looked empowered and confident.
I wish I could feel like she looks.

“Did...did you paint this?”

Austin walked over, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand and ruffling his dark hair. He stood just behind me. “Oh yeah, I did. It's my rendition of Little Red Riding Hood. D'you like it?” He seemed eager to receive my approval.

“I absolutely love it!” I sighed with admiration. Admiration, respect, and maybe even some jealousy. “Gosh, you're so talented.”

I gazed across the rest of the pieces. “I don't see any reason why any of these shouldn't be hanging on the walls of a restaurant, or library, or wherever.”

He chuckled lightly and folded his arms over his chest, looking over his work with me. “Well, I guess they'd be a lot better off there than just hanging out in my fortress of solitude.”

I felt his warm hand on my shoulder, and Austin turned me towards him. “Do uh, do you wanna take off your coat, sit down or something? Make yourself comfortable.” He smiled, gesturing towards both his bed and the futon couch.

My heart skipped a beat. It would be so easy to just sit down on the small, intimate-sized couch below the wall of paintings right in front of me...but instead, I unzipped my coat, casually threw it on the futon, and ambled to the other side of the room. I briefly assessed the array of sketches, drawings, and watercolor paintings that were pinned there. Many of the pieces were in various stages of completion, and it was wonderful to glimpse this part of Austin's creative process.

I remembered the first time I saw him on the bus and wondered if one of the sketches in front of me now was the one I'd seen him working on with such fervor all that time ago. I also wondered, briefly, what I would have thought if someone had told me that day that, a little more than a month from then, I'd be sitting in that same boy's room, getting a first-hand look at his art instead of admiring his commitment from across a bus.

I tentatively chose to sit on his bed. It was covered in a black and red comforter, plain enough to look masculine, but not plain enough to look like it was devoid of all personality. It was also made up, adding an appearance of tidiness that contrasted with the wall of pinned sketches haphazardly arranged nearby.

Austin sat beside me, kicking off his shoes and crossing his legs as he scooted back on the bed. He wriggled free of his zip-up jacket, letting it drape in a bunch behind him, and I noticed the tattoos on his arms again. I'd almost completely forgotten about them. Hunching forward, he gazed intently at me, raising his eyebrows with earnest interest. 

“So...we're here. Tell me everything.”

***

I told Austin everything I knew. I told him when my memory problems began, and told him when we moved and when I'd started seeing therapists. I told him that I was always around during the day because I dropped out of high school at the start of this semester because I couldn't handle the anxiety. As my hands and body shook, my skin cold to the touch, I told him about the crippling amount of anxiety I'd felt all day in anticipation of seeing him. And, of course, I told him that I'd recently found out I was institutionalized for a three-day psychological evaluation after I tried to commit suicide a couple years ago.

I curled my knees into a ball in front of me, forgetting that my boots were still on my feet and feeling like an idiot as I hastily kicked them off, fearful of getting snow and dirt on Austin's clean, tidy bed. My arms clutched around my legs, and my eyes had transformed into large saucers focusing on nothing in particular, but especially not on his face as I relayed this last part to him. My eyes had no tears to spill, even if I'd let my guard down enough to want them to. My veins had turned to ice—there was no turning back now. There was only me, my dysfunctional story, this beautiful person beside me, and the unrelenting silence that surrounded us in his room.

It seemed like an eternity before Austin's voice gently broke the silence. He spoke quietly, again as if something unseen would overhear our conversation.

“Well, that's not so bad,” he said.

His answer took me by complete surprise, and I raised my eyebrows at him.
Not so bad? “
Are you being serious?”

“Of course I am,” he insisted. I reddened—did I actually say that out loud?

“When I was in high school, I had a friend who tried to kill herself, too,” Austin continued, either not noticing or just plain ignoring the way I curled tighter into a ball. “She had a really bad home life...her dad was an abusive alcoholic, and sometimes she'd come to school with bruises on her arms or face—it was bad.”

“That sounds horrible,” I said in a voice just above a whisper. I looked at him; his face softened, and his eyes sparkled with sympathy as he recounted his story.

“Yeah, it was,” he agreed. Then his eyes lit up. “But you know what? Even though she had to go through that, she ended up being alright. I'm guessing she did some counseling maybe, something like that, but either way....I haven't talked to her in a couple months, but last I knew, she was in her second year of college on a scholarship, and she had just gotten engaged.”

“Oh...well, good for her.” I meant to be genuine, but somehow it still ended up sounding hollow. Austin noticed and put his hand lightly over mine, bringing himself closer.

“The reason I'm telling you this, Jade, is that it was a part of her past, but not who she is now. This thing that happened to you—it's part of your past too, right? It doesn't mean that it'll become your future. We all make mistakes...trust me.”

I got lost in his soothing gaze for a moment before I lifted my head up to his ceiling. I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but I couldn't help but fight him on it every step of the way. It was as if all the pent up feelings responsible for my last outburst had rubbed off straight into my first attempts at having a social life.

“Oh really? Well...what have
you
got then?” I turned back to face him. I hated that I sounded so combative, but I was also curious about what wrongs he'd committed himself. Someone like Austin didn't even seem capable of making mistakes.
Was I really ready to know?

Austin didn't wait long to respond. “Well, let's see...” he began, resting a large hand against his chin. It was shapely like a man's chin, but was mostly smooth aside from the faint hint of a shadow across his jawline.

He hung his head solemnly. “One time, I decided that my sisters would look better bald, so when I was young, I used an electric shaver to take their hair off in their sleep.”

I leaned back, both surprised and appalled. “Really?”

He looked up through tresses of his dark hair, the green flecks in his eyes glinting with mischief. “No, not really...that would have been great though.” He grinned playfully at me, and I shoved him.

“Unbelievable...maybe your fault is you're a pathological joker or something.”

Austin smiled again, reigning in his white teeth and looking down into his lap. He chuckled, then shook his head. “But really...I uh, had a bit of a temper when I was a kid. I went to therapy too to put it in check. One time I got so mad at a kid, I broke his arm with a chair, just for pushing me and making me fall down before class. The worst part is, I blacked out and I don't remember ever doing it. I was just told I did that that when I got suspended.”

I realized Austin was serious now, and I leaned in closer to hear him. He paused, reluctant to continue.

“After all the craziness I've unloaded on you, don't tell me you're uncomfortable unloading on
me
?”

Austin smiled wryly at me. “I guess you have a point...you've been pretty honest with me.”

He looked down again, fidgeting with his hands as I often did. With a sigh, he decided to continue.  “When my dad decided he didn't want to be around anymore, I kind of became the man of the house. The only problem with that is, when you're the youngest person in said house, that's a lot of pressure. I resented him for the position he put my family in, but most of all the position he put
me
in.

I was only ten when he left. Ten year-olds are supposed to be having fun outside with their friends, watching TV and eating tons of junk food—not wondering where our next meal is coming from and asking my mom what I could do to keep her hair from turning gray so fast.”

For a moment, my own problems vanished in the mix of sadness and anger that washed across Austin's handsome features.

“I was under a lot of stress, I guess you could say...but who was I going to talk to about it? Mom had it way worse than me, and my sisters did too. They both had jobs and were trying to support everyone while still going to high school. So I got...mad. A lot. I didn't need a reason, but if someone gave me one, you bet I took advantage of it and went full-force on them. When that happened, I'd get so mad that I would black out and not even remember what I'd done—or who I hurt.”

Austin finally looked up at me and shrugged his shoulders. “So, that's a little bit about me. It took a lot of work to get past it,  and sometimes I still feel like it's lurking under the surface. It's scary sometimes. But I do sympathize with you that not being able to remember something important is a terrible thing.”

I looked up at him with a new perspective and appreciation, still clutching my knees to my chest. I nodded in agreement. “It really does. Austin, I don't even remember why I wanted to kill myself. Ms. Orowitz—she's my therapist—or was. I don't know, it's a long story. But she diagnosed me yesterday with post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Austin straightened up, his head tilting to the side. “
Was
your therapist?”

I looked down, the guilt of the situation washing over me anew. “I...I kind of exploded on her, told her I wasn't coming back. I actually said I wasn't going to do therapy at all anymore.” I shuffled uncomfortably.

“Exploded? It's really hard for me to picture that.” Austin smirked. “I think it would be interesting.”

“Oh, it was terrible,” I said, widening my arms away from my body for effect. “It's like I couldn't stop the words from coming out of my mouth. It's just...she tells me how much progress I made, then diagnoses me and tells me there isn't much more she can do than what we've already been doing, and it makes it feel like I've made no progress at all. And...” I paused.
And she thought you were too much for me.
The heat of anger rose again in my throat at the thought, but I shoved it aside. “It's just been such a process trying to remember my past by myself. It's harder than anything I can remember doing...not like that says much.”

For the first time since I'd known him, Austin looked weary. He seemed weary for
me.
His green eyes mirrored my own feelings of frustration and sadness, and in that moment, I felt more connected to him than I had to anyone else, even my mother, in a very long time. He placed his hand over mine again, reassuring me with a squeeze.