Safe Haven

Patrick Kirch had been one of my best friends.

He was a freak, to be completely honest. He wigged out for no apparent reason, made comments at inappropriate times and never really accelerated in really any classes. He simply floated by in high school, spending most of his time practicing on his skateboard, on his drum kit or on his wrestling in a feeble last attempt to get a scholarship if his plans for the band fell out. Miraculously, the band did eventually take off, but it had been a risk - a risk that I would never be willing to take.

So when my mother held out the phone to me after announcing that he was calling for me, I was at a bit of a struggle when it came to deciding on what to do.

“Marlow-” my mother said with a warning edge to her voice.

Reluctantly, I took it from her and closed the journal Dr. Fletcher had given me. I hadn’t written anything in it, but I hoped that lugging it around the house would ease my mother’s mind after our relationship veered off course of her trying desperately to act normal to her slowly shutting down at my lack of improvement.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Marlow. It’s – uh – Pat. Pat Kirch…” He sounded so unsure of himself that it was hard to believe that it was actually him. Pat never had an issue with awkwardness around me. We’d had too many awkward encounters with each other growing up together for anything to become such a blockade in our relationship.

I stayed silent, unsure of why he was calling and what exactly he wanted from me.

“I was just wondering what you were up to today… I thought that maybe we could meet up and talk – catch up on everything…”

I pinched my eyes shut and pressed the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger, knowing that I should have expected it. “I have plans in a little while…” I said, not entirely lying. It was Friday, but whether or not I wanted to stroll into Dr. Fletcher’s office was something that I really didn’t care about missing.

“So…”

So that means that’s a no, Pat. “So…?”

He sighed. I could practically see him running his hand down his face. “Well, I’ll meet you at our spot in fifteen minutes?” he suggested.

“Pat-”

“Twenty minutes?” he offered.

Closing my eyes and thinking, I groaned. “Pat, you know this isn’t a good idea.” It really wasn’t. With John and with the rest of our friends, it wasn’t wise for him to start being drawn in by me. No one wanted anything to do with me aside from him, and I did not want to take responsibility for any tensions in their band.

“Why? I just want to talk with my friend, whom I haven’t seen in a long time.”

I never thought I would see the day that Patrick Kirch correctly used the word, “whom” in a sentence.

Closing my eyes again, I didn’t know what else I could say to shoot him down. He knew me too well. I was too easily manipulated for him to not get his way.

With one last sigh, I felt the defensive walls start to crumble to pieces around me. I glanced at the clock. “If I’m not there in fifteen minutes, I’m not ditching you, I probably couldn’t find a good enough excuse to get out of the house, okay?”

I didn’t have to see the boy to know that he was grinning like a fool in success. “Fine, see you then.”

I stood up, taking the telephone and my journal with me as I searched for my mother. I found her attempting to do laundry near the back of the house.

“Pat wanted to know if I could go to the coffee shop with him.”

My mother glanced up to me, looking more worn down and tired than I’d seen her before. “You have an appointment with Dr. Fletcher in an hour…”

“I know. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

“I guess you could go. I’ll meet you in her office?” she suggested.

I cringed, knowing that she was my last option for getting out of the meeting with Patrick.

With no legitimate excuses to stay cooped up in the house, I found myself driving the short distance to a small, hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that Patrick and I had claimed as our spot. It wasn’t well known, but the customers that were attracted to the place became regulars too often for it to be able to run out of business. And with as amazing mochas as theirs, I wasn’t going to complain about the faded sign hanging out front or the obvious need for another coat of red paint.

And, with it being such an unknown location, I didn’t feel the need to put on any makeup or change out of my two-sizes-too-big sweatshirt that I’d stolen from Sebastian ages ago or my gray sweatpants.

As soon as my white tennis shoes – that I hardly ever wore – stepped into the coffee shop and I heard the bell ding overhead, I realized that I’d made a fatal mistake. Because I should have known that Patrick, the person who tried to keep the peace amongst our group of friends throughout high school, would forever be that person: the “mender”. I should have predicted that when he invited me to “catch up” that it wouldn’t be just him in attendance. In the far back corner, all crammed into a cracked leather booth, Jared, Kennedy, Garrett and the instigator himself, all were hunched forward waiting for me.

As my heart locked up within my chest and my lungs ceased to work, they looked up, one-by-one, their different colored irises focusing on my green ones. By the time Pat crossed the room, I came to the conclusion that I would not be staying to witness the meeting, but my feet were concreted to the floor and my heart still hadn’t restarted.

Yet, strangely enough, I could still hear the rush of blood in my ears, roaring over Patrick’s voice, deafening me.

And then air rushed into my lungs like a tidal wave consuming my chest, and the roaring stopped and my heart continued to beat as rhythmic as it had before.

“-once they heard that I was talking to you, I couldn’t stop them,” Pat was saying as I turned my eyes to him. “Please don’t leave.”

I blinked at him before he laced his fingers through mine and guided me toward the already too-crowded booth. By the time we reached, I’d managed to pry my fingers from his and grab a chair from a nearby table for me to sit on.

I perched it on the edge and fiddled with my ponytail before I was able to meet their gazes.

An awkward silence consumed the table before Kennedy – always the brave – found it within himself to break it. “I’m sorry about John the other night.” The words came out a little rushed and a little jumbled but the apology was there, nonetheless.

“Let’s not talk about that, okay?” I said, my voice a little uneven.

“Why did you leave?” Garrett, ever curious, asked.

I pinched my eyes shut, expecting the question, but not yet willing to answer it. “Let’s not talk about that either.” It was a far reach, but I hoped that they would roll with it.

And they, thankfully, did.

“Where were you all this time?” Garrett shot out before anyone else could ask.

I glanced to him, taking in his round blue eyes and coppery color hair that I’d always envied. “I spent most of my time in Seattle.”

“Most of the time?” Jared, my favorite ginger, asked as his brow furrowed.

“Yeah. I drove around for about a week before I found myself at my Aunt’s doorstep. I just kind of stayed there after that,” I said, running my hand over the back of my ponytail once more.

A silence settled over the table as the boys glanced around, silently asking each other what else to bring up. It was Pat’s turn. “What brings you back?”

I sighed, not sure how to answer. I didn’t exactly want to announce to the world that I’d been sent back for a number of reasons. One being, my aunt freaked out and didn’t know how to deal with me anymore after having to call an ambulance for me when I swallowed about thirty prescription pain killers and a handful of aspirin. Another being that once my parents heard, my father demanded that I return to be under their care again. As if they could prevent it just by placing me back under their roof.

“My parents didn’t really give me an option.”

They looked disappointed by my answer.

“You look different,” Jared said, simply making an observation.

I forced a smile. “I would have dressed better, but I only expected Pat to be here.”

“No, it’s not the clothes… You- you’ve lost weight, your hair is longer, you’re quiet. I guess it’s not all that bad, it’s just not you,” Jared said, eying me up and down. I made sure that my sleeves fell into place at my wrists, covering the damage I’d done to myself in various lapses.

“Are you staying with your parents?” Kennedy asked.

I nodded, knowing full and well that he would ask why. And he did. “They didn’t really give me that option either.”

“Because you ran away?” Garrett asked, his child-like innocent starting to shine through.

Kind of. Sort of. Partially. “Yeah.”

I watched as Kennedy and Pat glanced to each other with narrowed eyes. They knew that there was more that I wasn’t saying.

The table lapsed into silence once more, but it was me who broke it after a long moment. “What about you guys? What have you been doing?”

“Touring,” they all answered.

Pat looked to me. “But you already knew that, from before you went to Seattle.”

I nodded, glancing over my shoulder to the empty counter. “I think I’m going to get something, quick,” I commented, standing. After taking a couple of steps away from the group of interrogators, I paused and turned back and asked out of politeness if they wanted anything. When they all shook their heads no, I ordered myself my usual.

As soon as I sat down again, everyone was staring at me as if I’d just missed an important meeting. I glanced around nervously. “We think you should talk to John,” Kennedy said, once again, bravely.

“No.”

The answer came out before I even thought about it, and the way it rolled off of my tongue had everyone paused at just how blunt and forceful it was.

The four boys I’d spent my high school career tagging along with looked around at each other before Jared stepped up to the plate with a reluctant sigh. “Marlow, for some ungodly reason, you and John always worked. And we all think that if you started dating again, it would be… I don’t know: beneficial to the both of you.”

I crossed my arms, careful not to spill my steaming beverage before I leaned back in my chair with narrowed eyes. “Are you kidding me? Is this really why you’re all here? To get us back together?” Everyone looked at each other, and although the looks they shared weren’t necessarily confirming, I made the assumption that they were. “Did you not see the girl on his hip at the party?”

Pat shook his head and held his hand out as if trying to silence me. “No, see, that’s the thing! He and Whitney aren’t together. They were just flirting, and she was hoping that it would turn into something more.”

If that was supposed to make me feel better, it didn’t. It almost made it sound like John started sleeping around while I was gone, and I wasn’t the kind of girl who took interest in that. I was the kind of girl who felt a little more of an ache in my chest at the sound of that.

And I could tell that Kennedy knew Patrick was making me feel that way.

It felt like chaos had suddenly broken out at the table. Everyone was discussing, and Pat was being lectured, and I was left with shaking hands and an emotional scale that kept tipping between angry and hurt.

And then I remembered Dr. Fletcher. When I glanced at the clock, I let out an audible, “God damn it,” that must have been loud enough for the entire room to hear because my table stopped arguing and the woman cleaning the machines looked at me, all with wide eyes.

My mother was going to kill me, seeing as I was already five minutes late and knowing that it was going to take about twenty minutes driving across town.

Without explanation, without saying anything further, I stood up and raced out to my car because showing up late at a therapy session wasn’t like showing up late to any doctor appointment. Dr. Fletcher would think of it as a move that showed that I wasn’t making any effort to “get better”. My mother would report back to my father in either anger or tears for me being so hopeless or unwilling to do anything.

As I drove as fast as I could with traffic I knew that any progress I’d made with the woman had now been lost, and I was going to be seeing a whole lot more of Fletcher than I wanted to.