Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
TATE
My knee bounces so quickly that I feel the table moving faintly beneath my elbows, which are propped up as I fist my hands together against my mouth. I shouldn’t feel this nervous to see her again, more nervous than ever, but I did something entirely, wholly idiotic. At least, I think I did.
I made Maeve color-coordinated flashcards.
Who does that? She’s going to think I’m a freak.
After seeing her notebook yesterday, and the amount of highlighted sections and parts that didn’t even look legible, I thought it might be easier for her to study if she had flashcards on the basics.
Something simple yet effective, so she could spend less time worrying about her notes and more time making sure she was confident in knowing everything.
But now that I wait for her to enter the library so I can give them to her, I already feel embarrassed.
I contemplate throwing them in the nearest trash can, but just as the thought flickers through my mind, I see her. She’s dressed in her usual workout clothes with a winter coat over top, a latte in one hand with her books teetering in the other.
Hot vanilla latte.
Sub almond milk.
Two extra shots of espresso.
Yes, I memorized her coffee order. The same label on all her coffees has been in front of me for the last three days, so…of course I memorized it. The photographic memory didn’t give me much of a choice.
And like I want to permanently ingrain the feeling of embarrassment into my veins, as she sits across from me, I slide the flashcards over to her. Her brows raise questioningly as she glances down at the bright cards that feel like they have a giant spotlight on them.
Maeve stills, picking them up. “What are these?”
“I, uh, made you flashcards.” I grimace at the shake in my voice. “They’re color-coordinated. It helps p-promote active recall in our brains. Moves it from short-term memory to…long-term.”
I’m rambling.
“You made these?” She gawks at me. “Last night?”
My cheeks feel like they’re on fire as I nod.
Flipping through them, she asks, “How do you know all this stuff? These are literally my…”
“I saw your books yesterday,” I mumble sheepishly, feeling like my body might cave in on itself. “Your notes.”
“The photographic memory,” she recalls with a laugh of disbelief, I think, slipping from her lips. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“Just thought it might h-help.”
My jaw clenches as I look down at my lap, staring at my hands underneath the table as they rest on my bouncing knees.
One of my mother’s boyfriends, the tattooed loser who introduced her to heroin, used to make fun of my stutter.
Every time I get nervous, I stutter. I can’t help it, just like I can’t help hearing the jerk’s voice in my mind when it happens.
Spit it out, kid.
What are you? Stupid?
At least the worst I ever got from him was humiliation; it beats what I got from some of the others.
I can feel Maeve staring at me, and that only makes me want to shrivel up and hide even more.
She probably thinks I’m a stalker on top of everything else.
Stalker… Serial killer… Freak. This trip might be over before it’s even started, all because I have no idea how to function like a normal human being.
Shouldn’t it be in our blood? Being social?
I already know the answer, but it doesn’t make me feel better, nonetheless.
“Extra brownie points for you,” she muses, easing my nerves with only five words. It’s crazy how she has the power to do that. “Thank you, Tate. Seriously.”
“No problem.”
I’m so thankful when we fall into our usual, comfortable silence, freed for a moment from fighting for my life to communicate normally in front of her.
To her. I appreciate that she enjoys the quiet, too, like she mutually understands that not every moment needs to be filled with talking.
Or maybe she can see just how pitiful I really am and thinks I need it.
Oh God. If she does, she doesn’t show it on her face as she starts to study with the flashcards.
The moment is soon interrupted by her phone lighting up on the table, but I quickly avert my eyes because I don’t want to seem nosy.
“Hey, Mom,” Maeve answers as she brings the phone up to her ear.
Is that what it’s like to have a normal parent?
They just call you whenever they want, hoping to see you during holiday breaks or just to hear your voice?
My dad was never in the picture, so I can’t miss much when it comes to him, but my mom…
Thinking of her still brings a tightness to my chest. I’ve had years to mourn the life I could have had if she was sober and worked on healing with the help of therapy and medication, but that doesn’t change the fact that it still sucks.
“Change of plans,” Maeve continues, pulling me from my thoughts as my eyes flicker up to meet hers. “I’ll be home for Christmas after all.”
I can’t hear what her mother says, but I can make out the faint sound of squealing on the other end.
“Should be there next Friday night.” She pauses. “No, Mom. Uh, I… Landon and I broke up. I have a friend who’s bringing me, actually.”
Landon.
Hearing of her breakup makes the tiny puzzle pieces in my mind come together slowly.
The way she’s been coming to the library every single day around the same time, the reason why she didn’t have a way home for Christmas in the first place, the solemn look she has on her face sometimes when she’s not distracted by her thoughts or what’s going on around her.
“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” she laughs awkwardly, so I make a point not to gawk, even though my mind whirls with curiosity when it shouldn’t, “can we, you know, talk about it later?”
The topic makes a weird feeling stir in my gut, something I’ve never felt before, but it doesn’t necessarily feel good. It must be a touchy subject if she doesn’t want to talk about it in front of me, and especially since her family wasn’t even aware that they had broken up.
“Yeah, talk to you soon,” she says. “I love you.”
Had I ever told my mom that I loved her? Maybe when I was younger, before I was old enough to realize that she’d never really loved me.
“Sorry about that.”
I’m immediately shaking my head. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s okay.”
“She’s really excited for me to come home.” She frowns faintly as she speaks. “I’ve never spent a single Christmas apart from my family.”
“At all?”
“Nope,” she says. “It’s like a tradition for us. We spend every Christmas together, no matter what. It’s really important to my mom, I guess.”
The silence settles where I wish I could speak, but talking about mothers isn’t exactly my area of expertise.
There isn’t a single moment of my life where I can recall even a minute memory of my mom being a good mom.
Really, I don’t know what that’s supposed to look like; I just know that she wasn’t it.
I’m so lost in those thoughts, ones that used to haunt me, that I don’t even realize how much time has passed until Maeve is gathering her things.
As she stands, she tears a piece of paper from her notebook, jotting something down before handing the paper over to me. “I won’t be here tomorrow because of finals. Meet me at my dorm on Saturday morning. Here’s my room number. I’m in the co-ed building.”
“Okay,” I say tentatively, “I will.”
She turns to leave, but twists back around abruptly as her hand comes down on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. My heart skips so harshly in my chest that I have to steady my breathing as I try and fail not to gawk up at her.
“Thanks again for the flashcards, Tate.”
My head does something between a nod and a weird motion that could very likely be mistaken for a small seizure, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she gives me a half-smile and turns to leave the library.
The goosebumps that sweep over my body from the lingering feeling of her touch chill me down to the bone as I helplessly watch her go, clutching the piece of paper she gave me tightly in my fist as if it could disappear at any moment.