Chapter 7 #2
I shoved the door open and ripped my backpack off, throwing it to the ground. My tantrum extended from the entry to the living room until I finally emerged to the balcony.
Grandpa was hunched over a clay sculpture, puffing a cigarette. He took the cigarette with wet-clay fingers, and tapped the ashes into the ashtray “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or slam more doors?”
I flushed with embarrassment, but the anger overpowered that. “Those jerks—”
“You can curse, I’m dead anyway, I don’t mind.”
“Those assholes—they mess with Denali and I hate it! I HATE IT!”
Denali cost the boys’ team their spot on the local leaderboard. It was stupid, nothing to get worked up about, but the following day, Denali emerged from the locker room, his eyes rimmed red. A bottle of syrup had been sloshed in his locker, and someone threw an apron and Densky’s menus inside.
I was horrified. Nothing like that had ever happened at my old camps and the coaches didn’t care.
Hersch and I both knew Denali would bike our way after dinner.
And after what happened, I didn’t know how to face him.
My grandfather took a long drag of the cigarette. “What does your bloodlust demand?”
“I don’t know!” Fury overwhelmed me and I hiccupped with the tears. “I hate them! I hate all of them!”
“I ragazzi sono crudeli,” he chuckled. “That means—”
His big solution was telling me that teenagers were cruel? “I know what it means! I’m not stupid, Grandpa!”
Before the diagnosis, Hersch would’ve never tolerated that disrespect from one of his grandkids.
But he’d changed. The amusement in his eyes eased away until he sighed, wiping his hands on his pants.
He dug some bills out of his wallet and held them out to me, his fingers shaky. By then, they were always shaky.
“Find the cardboard box in the—uh—closet. The big one. Then fetch the Densky’s mug from the cupboard.
” He took another long drag of his cigarette, smoke unfurling from his mouth as he spoke.
“Go to the neighbors, ask them if they have Densky’s mugs.
Say it’s for a school project and they won’t get them back.
If they won’t part with them, offer money. ”
I smoothed out the dollar bills. “What do I do with the mugs?”
“There’s hammers in my toolbox.”
I ended up with a sizable amount of Densky’s merchandise from Hersch’s neighbors. They’d clearly pilfered from their senior’s discount outings. For twenty minutes, I sat on the complex’s stairs until Denali arrived. His eyes were bloodshot.
I carried the cardboard box to the courtyard and Denali watched me place mugs below the rusty grill. “What are you doing?”
I flashed the logo on the mug and held out the hammer.
We spent half an hour smashing them until the white ceramic pieces were chunky sand.
When we were finished, Hersch had choclava for us—his favorite dessert, drizzled with chocolate.
My grandparents used to vacation to Greece when my grandma was alive, and when my grandpa was handed the terminal diagnosis, he consumed his weight in it.
He sat us at the TV to watch reruns of The Twilight Zone with a gruff reminder not to disturb him while he was sculpting.
We dug into the bowls, feet up on the old coffee table. Usually while we watched TV, Denali and I talked.
But today he was quiet.
His hand inched across the cushion, and I offered him the remote. “Do you want the volume up?”
He didn’t say anything. His eyes were firmly planted on the screen as his hand moved across the cushion. His fingers were shaky, just as shaky as Grandpa’s usually were. I watched his hand, stunned when I realized what was happening.
Slowly, his fingertips touched me.
This feeling like sparklers lit up inside.
I couldn’t stop staring at his hand. His fingers were dusty from the mug-smashing, and he laced them through mine.
Gently, he rubbed his thumb across my skin, and I lost all interest in The Twilight Zone.
I’d reached this inner lava temperature, a molten fire that painted a permanent blush on my face.
My heart pounded so fast, I couldn’t speak.
It was the first time Denali held my hand.
I’d spent years pushing those memories down, the bottled-up ones that had been fine alone because they were untouched. Now they broke open with every conversation Denali and I had. That’s what talking to him was, endless memories, a fountain overflowing with them.
The truth was, our summer wasn’t only the happy moments. There was so much more, and I didn’t want to remember. Denali didn’t just hold my hand. He’d made me cry, too, and I didn’t like the person I was when I excused it.
I’d never let Denali push me around like that again. I’d never be weak like that again.
I stared at the Densky’s logo. “You’re right. I don’t care. Why would I?”
Denali didn’t say anything when I strode past. I wanted to talk to anyone else. I didn’t want to see my ex-boyfriend gazing at those ugly bubble letters—
My footsteps stopped and I struggled, wrestling with the realization that Denali was my resident. My brother’s best friend. Literally across the hall. If I thought he’d never come to my room again, I was lying to myself. Which meant at some point, Denali would see the Densky’s logo again.
He could say he didn’t care, but what if he was lying?
Why did I give a shit? Because even after all this time, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him get hurt like that.
I twisted around. “These are my walls. I’ll do what I damn well please with them.”
Denali remained silent while I threw a dark blue paint over the Densky’s logo. The words were finally blotted out with an ugly smear. It didn’t fix anything, just hid the evidence.
Elijah called Denali over and I listened for his footsteps until he walked away.
Then and only then did I exhale.