Far From You

26

THREE YEARS AGO (FOURTEEN YEARS OLD)

“Come on. Open the door.” Mina knocks for the third time.

I’m locked in the bathroom, trying to smear enough foundation to cover the scar on my neck. I’m failing. No matter how hard I try, a shadow shows through.

It’s been almost six months since the crash, and the idea of going to a dance, the irony of going to a dance when it still hurts to move too fast, makes me want to scream and yell no, no, no like a toddler. But my mom was so excited when Cody asked me, and Mina talked endlessly about dresses, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no to anyone.

But now I don’t want to leave the bathroom. I hate how twisted and uneven I am, how I have to lean hard on my cane with every step.

“Soph, if you don’t open this door in the next five seconds, I’ll break it down. I swear I will.” Mina knocks harder.

“You couldn’t,” I say, but I smile at the thought of her, five-foot-two, a hundred pounds soaking wet, trying.

“I can! Or I’ll go get Trev—I bet he could break it down.”

“Don’t you dare get Trev.” Every time I’m alone with him, he wants to apologize—to fix me.

I can almost see her triumphant expression through the door. “I will! I’ll go get him right now.” I hear exaggerated footsteps—Mina stomping in place outside the door. I can see the shadow of her feet.

I toss the tube of foundation into my makeup bag and wash my hands off. The elaborate curls that Mina coaxed into my hair skim my bare shoulders. “I’ll be out in a second.” I tug the neck of my dress higher. The red silk is pretty—it makes my skin look milky instead of sickly pale—but Mom had to take it to a tailor to get lace added to the deep V neckline so it would cover the worst of the scarring.

It’d taken forever to find something with sleeves. We must have tried on at least fifty dresses, sharing the same fitting room as my mom waited outside. Mina had fussed with me, helping me step in and out of the heaps of tulle and satin. She’d grabbed my hand and steadied me, and when she’d let go (holding on a second too long, my skin against hers, half-dressed in the tiny room), she’d blushed and stammered when I asked her if she was all right.

My leg is killing me. I’d left my cane in the bedroom, and I need it now, even though I don’t want to look at it.

I take the orange bottle out of the beaded clutch that Mina had insisted I buy along with the dress. I shake out two pills.

She knocks again. “Come on, Sophie!”

Make that three. I down them with water from the tap, tucking the bottle away.

I open the door, and red silk swishes against my legs, a foreign, almost pleasant feeling floating above the mess of scars.

Mina beams. “Look at you.” She’s already dressed, wrapped and draped in silver fabric, all shimmer and tanned skin. Mrs. Bishop is going to freak when she sees how low her Grecian-style dress is cut. “I was right—the red is perfect.”

She spins around. Her curly hair is looped up in a headband of silver leaves, little tendrils falling over her bare shoulders as she rummages around in the blankets on her bed. She grabs something, hiding it behind her. “I have a surprise!” She’s practically vibrating in her eagerness.

“What is it?” I ask, playing along because she’s so happy. I always want her to be happy.

She holds it out triumphantly.

The cane she’s clutching is painted scarlet to match my dress. Mina has glued red and white crystals all along it. They twinkle and catch the light. Velvet ribbons stream from the handle, spirals of silver and red, twisting and swinging in the air.

“You tricked out my cane.” I reach for it, and my smile is so wide, I feel like it’s going to split my face in two. I press my hand against my mouth, like I need to hide it, hold it in, and I do, because the tears are there, down my face, probably messing up all my makeup. I don’t care, because she does something that no one else can: she makes my life pretty and good and full of sparkles and velvet, and I love her so much in that moment that I can’t contain it.

So I say it because I mean it. Because I have to, there is no choice, standing there with her: “I love you.”

It’s there, just for a second. I see the flicker in her eyes, and she does so well to cover it, but I see it, before she hugs me and whispers against my ear, “I love you more.”