Operation Beautiful

Five minutes later I hear the doorbell ring. Both Haley and Emmaleigh are outside, engaged in some pretty basic but slightly awkward conversation. It’s a good thing I’m tagging along.

We enter the mall no problem. It’s really boring to sit through all the stores, but thankfully both Emmaleigh and Haley are great lovers of food.

“That’s, uh, that’s a lot of fries,” Haley says, looking at the monster plate Emmaleigh sets in front of herself.

“Yeah. I’ve been feeling really hungry lately. Mom says I must be growing.”

“It could be increased excersize. Have you been going to the gym?” Haley asks, sipping from her shake. From there the conversation goes into exercise, something I can, at least, discuss without sounding like an idiot.

“Wow,” Emmaleigh says with a laugh. “I can’t even bench half of that.” I just nod proudly and get up to throw out the trash.

Now that the ice is broken, Emmaleigh talks to Haley like she’s an old friend. As we walk down one of the hallways, Emmaleigh slips her arm through Haley’s. Haley stops talking.

“Hey, look! Wigs! Let’s go try some on!” Haley doesn’t reply, but her new friend pulls her along anyway. “You look funny,” Emmaleigh says with a smile, putting the wig on Haley’s head. Haley takes one look in the mirror and puts the wig back.

“Yeah, really funny,” she says with a smile. “Let’s go somewhere else, okay?” The girls keep walking, me standing next to Emmaleigh.

“You know, I’ve never got to sit in a photobooth,” Emmaleigh says quietly, pointing to one in the corner.

“Let’s not,” Haley says, trying to move past it. “It’s over-rated.”

“I guess so,” says Emmaleigh, preparing to keep going. Haley stops and puts her hand on Emmaleigh’s shoulder.

“That’s it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I say ‘let’s not’ and you automatically agree with me? How about what you want?” Haley questions a little harshly. What's wrong with her? I've never seen her act like this before.

“Well, I mean, you looked like you didn’t want to and--”

“We’re going,” Haley snaps. “Next time have a little more spine about it.”

The three of us crowd into the booth. At first it’s hard to loosen up. I mean, it’s three rather shy people. A few seconds in, Emmaleigh attempts to stick her toungue out at the camera.

“Ah loo’ thilly,” she attempts to say. This causes me to giggle and fall over into Emmaleigh’s lap, causing her to let out the smallest of shrieks. Haley chuckles drily.

“Are you always this scared?”

“I’m a jittery person, okay? Geez, no need to give me a hard time about it.”

I don’t expect what happens next. I mean, how was I supposed to know it was coming?

Haley’s face shuts down, her whole body starts shaking.

“Haley?” Emmaleigh pokes Haley in the shoulder but it goes unnoticed. “Corey, what’s wrong with her?”

“Haley are you okay?” I ask, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“I’m fine. I think I’m going to go to the bathroom.” But the voice that comes out isn’t hers. I climb over Emmaleigh to sit next to Haley.

“Haley, just calm down okay?” I put my arms around her, try to comfort her, tousle her hair and rub her arms, but she keeps shaking. Shaking and muttering. Her breathing gets rapid and her eyes glaze over. I don’t know what’s happening. I’ve never had to deal with this before. Maybe this is why she was so snappy and gruff earlier.

“Let’s get her out of the booth,” Emmaleigh says quietly. I nod and more or less carry Haley out, which causes her to cringe and smack me in the chest. Hard. Now I know what Trevor meant when he said she was strong.

Trevor!

“Can you just stand next to her and make sure she doesn’t hurt herself?” I ask Emmaleigh. She nods and I whip out my phone to call Trevor.

“Hey, Corey, what’s up?”

“Trevor, it-- I-- we-- Haley--” My voice is shaking, the words bursting out breathlessly. I’m not going to deny it. I am terrified. Seeing a person like that, it’s scary.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks, his voice jumping in urgency.

“I-I don’t know.” I tell him where we are and ask him to hurry. I turn around quickly at the sound of Emmaleigh’s startled squeal.

“S-she hit me!” she says, backing off slightly. “I was just trying to give her a hug.”

Haley is sitting on the floor. Her head is buried in her knees and I don’t know if she’s back to normal or still off in...whatever world she was in.

“I’m sorry,” I say, putting an arm on Emmaleigh’s shoulder. “She’s not really herself right now.”

“Is she...is she going to be okay?” she asks quietly. I look around, glad that this area of the mall is quiet.

“She’ll be fine. I called Trevor over. He should be able to handle it.” Or at least, I hope so. Emmaleigh lets out the smallest of smiles.

“That’s good.”

Soon I hear authoritative footsteps. “Sorry, guys,” Trevor says from behind me. “She gets like this some times. You can leave if you want.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine. We want to make sure she’s okay.”

Trevor walks up to her and kneels down so his face his next to hers.

“Haley?” There’s no response. Trevor places a hand on her elbow. She thrashes it off and curls her arms around her knees. As if he’s practiced before, Trevor grabs Haley by the elbows and pulls her into his lap. She reacts violently, pushing away from him as he tries to pull her closer.

“Haley,” he whispers quietly. But she doesn’t seem to hear him. She pushes away, but he holds her closer. She hits him once, twice with her fist and then stops.

“Haley?” Trevor asks again. I can see confusion in his face, as though he expected her to hit him again. “Haley, it’s me, Trevor.” She explodes again, trying to push away, but not raising another fist. He rubs her back and begins to speak into her ear, kissing her face every so often, as though it’ll help calm her down.

“It’ll be all right, Haley. It’s fine, okay? I’m right here with you, aren’t I?” Her violent thrashes slowly calm, but I can see her shaking. Trevor continues to rub her back. “I’m always here for you. Don’t worry.” One hand clutches onto his shirt and I hear her voice whisper hoarsely. Trevor smiles and leans in to kiss her gently.

“That’s right,” he says. “You can tell me anything.”

They sit like that for a long time: Haley still shaking, Trevor still comforting her. Then, when he senses that she’s slowly coming back to normal, he pulls out his phone and texts me.

You guys go get something to eat and come back in about five minutes. Haley’s going to want to pretend this didn’t happen.

I show the text to Emmaleigh and grab her hand. She sniffles and I turn to look at her.

“Are you okay?”

She nods and smiles. “Yeah, sorry. It was just...it was really scary to see someone like that.”

“I know what you mean,” I say. I lean forward to wipe a tear in the corner of her eye, my eyes caught momentarily in her scared blue ones. I clear my throat quickly and move back. “And Haley would really appreciate it, I think, if you didn’t mention this to anyone. Even Jessica.”

She looks up at me. “Okay. I promise. Um, I think I’m going to go to the bathroom, okay?”

I follow her to the bathroom and wait outside. After a few minutes she comes out and we make our way back to the photo booth. Trevor and Haley are gone. My phone buzzes with another text. It’s from Haley.

I’m really sorry. I don’t know why but it just...happens sometimes. I can’t really remember anything, so I hope I didn’t hurt anyone.

I turn to Emmaleigh, remembering her squeal from earlier. “Did you get hurt when she hit you?”

She shakes her head. “No, it was more of a passing swipe. She didn’t really get me. Trevor...he looked like he’d be bruised in the morning.”

Emmaleigh and I are fine, I reply. How are you?

Better. I’m going to call you. Mind if I talk to Emmaleigh?

The phone rings and I hand it to Emmaleigh. “Haley wants to talk to you,” I said. She nods and takes the phone, her eyes widening slightly in apprehension.

“Haley?” brief pause. “Oh, no. I’m fine, really. Are you okay?” longer pause. “I’m glad. Oh--you can just call me Emma. That’s what everyone but Corey does.” I shrug slightly at her words, even though she’s not looking at me. “Yeah, no, I understand. No, no, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t tell anyone--yeah, I understand.” She pauses and bites her bottom lip. “I hope you feel better. I’ll get your number from Corey. Maybe we can hang out some time?” pause. “Sounds great. He does? Okay, bye!” She hands the phone to me.

“It’s Trevor. He wants to talk to you.”

“Hello?”

“Hey, man.” There’s a pause. I can imagine that he doesn’t really want to talk about it in front of Haley. “So before I came, she didn’t...you know...”

“Dude, I already told you. I didn’t get hit and neither did Emmaleigh. We’re fine. It’s Haley we’re worried about.” There’s a deep sigh on the other end.

“Good. She’s fine. She recovers really fast now and this is the first time it’s happened during the day in a while. She didn’t even hit me much.”

“That’s good,” I say. Trevor’s voice hitches a bit as he tries to explain something. He lowers his voice to a whisper.

“It usually only happens when she’s reminded really strongly of Trina. So whatever happened, it means that she had a lot of fun. Emma must be a really special girl.”

I look over at Emmaleigh. She looks back at me and smiles slightly. “She must be,” I say quietly.

“Anyway, thanks for calling man. And if it ever happens again, just call okay? Don’t try to deal with it yourself. She reacts differently to different people, so...things can get messy.”

“How much experience have you had with this?” I ask, astounded. I can hear him shrug.

“Well, I don’t let my mom deal with it because of how violent Haley gets and a lot of times seeing her mom will only make things worse. So whenever it happens, I’m there, at least as back up. Yeah...so, I guess you could say I have a fair amount of experience.”

“Oh.” I hang up and turn to Emmaleigh. “He sounded okay. What did Haley say?”

“She just wanted to make sure she didn’t hit me or anything. Apparently she always ends up hitting Trevor when this happens. She didn’t want me to tell anyone either, like you said. And, uh, we’re going to hang out some time over the weekend.”

I look at her. “You aren’t scared?”

She shakes her head. “I think...I think Haley must be more scared, if that keeps happening. Besides, she says this is the first time she’s had that happen in a long time. Why does she do that?”

I just shrug. “I think you should ask her. Or let her tell you when she’s ready.”

She nods and looks up to smile at me. “You’re a good friend, Corey.” Her fingers slip through mine as we get into the parking lot.

“Thanks.”