Fix by J. Mann (highly illogical behavior .TXT) 📕

him, wiping the mess from my face on my pillow.

“What, Eve? What didn’t you?”

“Get what I wanted. I didn’t get what I wanted. I don’t even know what it was.”

My eyes have adjusted to the dark because I can see him clearly. His gold-rimmed glasses. His dark hair falling on his shoulders. He’s unshaven, as usual. As usual? And he smells like a clean T-shirt straight from the dryer. All of a sudden, I’m dying to press my face into his chest, to suck in the scent of that shirt. The yellow one. The Minnesota one.

Car tires crunch gravel, and he turns toward the sound, but my eyes stay on the T-shirt.

“You’re wearing his shirt.”

The Real One

You were hatless.

And the way your eyes

searched the crowd

made you look smaller,

younger.

We stood by the benches

in front of the theater

across from the food court.

We didn’t speak.

Who knows what you were

thinking. I only know

I wasn’t. The echoing hum of the mall

falling on my ears like

steady rain.

Scared shitless

they’d show.

Scared shitless

they wouldn’t.

They showed.

Although it was obvious

by the distant look in Nick’s eyes

he was here to endure this

for a friend. I was to be

endured.

Had I hoped

it would be different?

Hell, yes, I had.

I had hoped.

And although he couldn’t see my brace

under the large sweater I borrowed from you,

no amount of body positivity could transform

my limp,

my lean,

the hump on my back,

into something

he had hoped to find.

I was crooked as hell.

This mattered, and

although I might imagine a different world,

I didn’t live in one.

Jayden—wearing your hat and his grin—

didn’t notice the cloud of disappointment

swirling around him. Neither did you.

And as the four of us dangled

at the edge of the food court

clicking and clacking against

one another like wind chimes in a light breeze,

I couldn’t stop noticing your sleeve,

your very long sleeve,

and how you twisted that sleeve behind your back.

Nervous.

You were nervous.

Then Jayden reached up,

plucked the hat from his head

and returned it to yours—his hands

lingering near your ears

longer than they needed to.

You held your breath—and

a thought landed in my head

like a little bird

out of nowhere.

A light, fluttery thought.

Maybe it will work out.

A Shower

“EVE!”

I smell bacon.

My stomach rolls. I have absolutely no appetite—actually, I have less than no appetite. Food looks horrible. It smells horrible. The thought of it is horrible. I’ve been living on dry toast and half glasses of milk for over a month now. My mother didn’t give it a second thought. Mary Fay does.

My hand reaches for my orange bottle. Food or Roxy. There isn’t room in there for both.

“Eve!”

Oh my god. Eating or dealing with Mary Fay? I take a half. And then sink back onto my pillow.

I’m drifting off to somewhere else… my favorite place, his place, when—

“Your eggs are getting cold!”

“Coming!” I shout, feeling the sound vibrate down my spine, although not nearly the way it once did.

Throwing off my covers, I logroll to a sitting position like the tree trunk I am, but then stop, self-conscious when I remember him. Licking my lips, I run my fingers through my hair, as though he might be able to see me right now.

“Eve!” The woman is relentless. “Time to eat. Then it’s shower time. Remember the bargain? You get a few more days out of school and I get to breathe inside this apartment without your suffocating stink. It’s time to pay the piper.”

Fuck the piper. And fuck school. I’d do anything not to go back there. Tightening my brace around the ache in my stomach, I head for the kitchen, giving Mary Fay my best version of a smile.

“Good morning,” she says, helping me into the chair in front of a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon with a side of rye toast.

Rye is my favorite. I wish that helped me right now.

I shovel a forkful of eggs into my mouth, hiding my gag just as my stomach growls. The human body is superstrange.

“Hungry?” she asks, leaning back against the kitchen counter, watching.

I shrug, letting the eggs slide down my throat just because I need my throat to breathe. “Have you heard from my mother?”

My question has the desired effect: Mary Fay forgets about food.

“She’ll text us soon, Eve. Like I told you, conferences are funny places. They suck you into them, like some sort of black hole.”

I inhale slowly through my nose, trying to settle my stomach. A black hole. I’ve wished my mother into a black hole. Yet I don’t stop taking the Roxy. Because? Because I’m in pain. Because I had a major surgery. Because my doctor prescribed it. Because who knows why.

“Eve?”

I don’t answer.

“She loves you, honey.”

“I know,” I growl. I do know. I do. Although it may be right this second that I’m actually realizing it.

“But… she left.”

Mary Fay sighs, hugging the dish towel to her bright pink button-up shirt that looks pretty against her dark skin. “I think that sometimes… your mom gets scared of the responsibility.”

“She’s afraid of me?”

“She’s not afraid of you, Eve. She’s afraid of making a mistake.”

“A mistake? Like, as in a single one? Because she makes a million of them. You’d think she’d be used to it.”

Mary Fay laughs, turning her attention toward wiping down the counters. “I’m here, Eve. And I’m not going anywhere. Now eat your breakfast.”

I quickly use the moment to break my bread into pieces and stick it inside my napkin along with an entire strip of bacon. When she turns back, she smiles. I’ve always liked her smile. It’s crooked, like me, with one side of her lips showing more teeth than the other. She’s buying my show.

“Wonderful. Finish that up and then it’s into the shower,” she says, returning to the dishes. “We’re also going for an outing to the grocery store.”

“What?”

She turns from the sink. “You know what Nancy said.”

According to my pain-in-the-ass physical therapist, I wasn’t getting out enough. It’s something she’s been saying for a while—and something Mary Fay heard for the first time yesterday yet takes seriously.

“But I look like shit,”