Unravelling

I shake my head even though he isn’t looking at me. “No, I remember you. I remember seeing your face when I opened my eyes.”

He shrugs and doesn’t take his eyes off his shoes. “I checked to see if you were okay.”

I don’t know him at all, but I know he’s lying. “But I wasn’t okay.”

“You—”

“Don’t—” Lie to me, I want to say as I step closer to him. Instead I say nothing and glance toward the back of the room. No one’s looking at us.

When I turn back to Ben, he’s staring at me. His jaw sets into a hard line. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“You did something to me, something I can’t explain.” I pause, trying to find the right words. But I’m not sure they exist. “I . . . I died.” I rush on before he can tell me I’m crazy. “I mean, I felt it. I felt myself die—my heart stopped, there was nothingness, then there was this lightness—” I stop because I’m not making any sense. “But then suddenly I was back and you were leaning over me. I couldn’t move, but you did something to my back so I could, and the doctors who looked at my X-ray said my back had been broken and healed again.”

I’m close enough to him now that he can’t swing his legs without them hitting me.

“So, Ben Michaels, what did you do to me?”

He looks up when I say his name, and his eyes connect to mine—they’re as black as an oil well. And I remember the way they looked at me before. “Does it matter?”

“Yes. Yes, it does.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know,” I say, my voice rising uncontrollably. I take a deep breath and try to maintain my composure. Then I whisper, “Something happened to me, and I need to understand what it was.”

“No, you don’t,” he says with a small laugh.

And even though he doesn’t sound condescending, it makes me feel like he thinks I’m just a silly girl. Irrational and crazy. My fists clench at my sides, and I bite the inside of my cheek.

“You’re alive now, focus on that, right?” he says.

He waits for a response, but I don’t give him one. Sophomore year I tried to be a peer mediator, and they told us the best way to get people to keep talking was just to be silent. When you don’t say anything, the other person is tempted to fill that silence, and you can get more out of them. I didn’t make it as a peer mediator because I kept injecting my own opinions and judgments—shocking, I know—but I held on to that advice. It actually works.

And it works on Ben. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, tugging on the ends. “If you keep focusing on what happened, when you actually die, you’ll still be thinking you haven’t really done anything.”

I pull back, and a hushed gasp escapes my mouth, because it’s like he was there with me when I was dying.

Is that what happened? I don’t even know.

“I didn’t mean that,” he says, sliding off the table. “That didn’t come out the way I wanted it to, I mean.” He pauses to chew on the corner of his bottom lip. “Look, I saw it happen. I came over to check on you, then when other people came over too, I backed away and gave them room.”

“But—”

He shakes his head. “No, I’m serious. You had a traumatic experience. I was the first person you saw when you opened your eyes.”

I nod, because Alex has already said as much, and, well, it does make sense. The problem is that deep inside my chest, that explanation feels wooden—hollow. And even Ben’s speech sounds rehearsed. I don’t hear any conviction behind his words.

“Why were you at the beach?”

He smirks. “What, I can’t go to the beach? It was summer.”

He starts to walk away, like our conversation is over.

“I don’t believe that,” I say. It comes out quietly, but I know he hears me because he stops. Keeping his back to me, he just waits, and I get the impression from his posture that he’s holding his breath. I believe he brought me back. I don’t know how yet, but I will. I do know that right now, I believe I’m here—I’m alive—because of him. The sense of gratitude makes me dizzy and light-headed, like I need to take a deep breath.

And apparently all rational thought leaves my head and my body takes on a life of its own, because I take a step toward him, reaching out, until the tips of two of my fingers brush against his. I don’t know what I’m doing, it’s been forever since I just held hands with anyone, and my hand seems to tingle with the touch.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ben says. His voice is quiet and cracks slightly at the end, as if he feels helpless, as if he wishes he had some kind of answer. And that is almost enough to make me back off and leave Ben Michaels and whatever freaky shit he’s into alone. Only I’m tired of being hollow inside.

You’ll still be thinking you haven’t really done anything.

I want to feel something. I want to feel . . . alive.

And whatever he says, Ben Michaels is the reason I have the chance.

“I just . . . Thank you.” And as I say it, I squeeze his hand, the level of pressure directly correlating to the depth of emotion I’m feeling—that is to say, it had to feel a little like his bones might start cracking. “Thank you.”

I let go and leave him standing there. No matter how much I want to look back, I don’t.

hen I get home after Alex and I drop Jared off at polo, my mother is awake. And baking.

This happens sometimes, which almost makes everything worse. “Almost” because nothing beats the smell of warm bread.

“J-baby!” she calls when I open the door. “In here!”

“Here” is the kitchen. She’s showered and is wearing a bright green velour jumpsuit and more eyeliner than she needs. And she’s surrounded by possibly eight hundred muffins— blueberry, banana nut, bran, cornbread, chocolate chip—they’re everywhere. Literally. They cover every surface in our kitchen. As does flour.

My flip-flops stick to the linoleum floor. Egg, vanilla extract, butter—I’m not sure what I’m sticking to, but I know I’m annoyed. We’ll be eating muffins for every meal until we have to throw them out, and I’ll be the one cleaning this up.

“How was school, baby?” she asks, turning to give me a smile and a banana nut muffin. “Here, have one, they’re fabulous. I used your great-grandmother’s recipe, and I got it just right. They couldn’t be more perfect!”

“School’s fine,” I mutter as I take a bite. She’s right. She did get Nana’s recipe perfect, which is saying something. My dad’s grandmother owned a bakery.

“Jared said your schedule was all wrong. He told me they gave you classes that were easier than his and that you’d need to get it changed. Do you have any classes with Kate? Oh, here—try this one too. I’m not sure why it isn’t quite right, but they just didn’t rise as well as the first batch. They taste fine, though.” She hands me a flat cornbread muffin. She’s forgotten that I don’t like cornbread. Just like she’s forgotten that Kate and I aren’t friends anymore.

“I’m getting my schedule fixed,” I say, taking a bite of it anyway. “I filed paperwork with Elksen and now I’m just waiting for him to get around to it.”

“How is it?” she asks, nodding to the flat muffin. “I’m just not sure why they didn’t rise. I could throw them out, I guess, but that would be so wasteful. I just don’t know what happened. All the other batches look great.”

What happened is she messed up the baking soda or baking powder, but I’m not about to point that out. “It tastes great, Mom.”

She beams, and her dimples—the same as Jared’s—peek out of her cheeks. Even her nose scrunches up with her smile. She looks ten years younger than she did a few days ago. I can’t think of the last time she smiled like that.

I want to say something else, prolong this moment, but words fail me. And it doesn’t matter. She’s already turned back to the mixing bowl and begun a long explanation of why she decided to also make a batch of raspberry muffins and how they’ll be different from the blueberry ones, even though she’s using the same baseline recipe. I text Alex, Struz, and even Jared’s water polo coach to let them know there’ll be muffins on us for anyone who’s interested.

And then I just listen to her talk.

It’s not that I’m particularly interested in the art of baking muffins or that I don’t have a ton of other things I should do. I just love how animated she looks—so opposite of yesterday and the day before and the day before that.