One of Those Faces (18)

“Sorry for what?”

Sorry I’m like this.



Her back is to me. She’s wearing the green dress with the blue flowers, but her body isn’t that of a ten-year-old. She’s tall and slender, auburn hair spilling past her shoulders.

I take a step toward her as my eyes adjust to focus on her in the dark room. She stands in front of a mirror, but my reflection doesn’t appear as I approach from behind. I reach out to grab her shoulder. My fingers meet the mirror instead.

I stare into the glass. I’m wearing the dress. My face is my own but prettier, the skin smoother and the eyes blue instead of steel gray. The nose is straighter, the lips fuller.

I press a hand onto the cold mirror.

My fist rears back and strikes the mirror, long cracks branching from the impact. I pull my head back and smash it forward, pieces of glass falling all around me. Blood drips into the cracks. I touch a hand to the bloody veins etched into the glass and drive my forehead into the mirror.



My eyes snapped open. I lay still on the bed, my hands shaking. I jolted up when I saw the blood dripping from my palm onto my white blanket.

Unfurling my hand, I saw the cut from the broken pencil had reopened. I looked over at Iann sprawled out facing away from me and slowly rose from the bed. Once I escaped the bed with only a slight creak, I rushed to the kitchen sink and ran the water over my bleeding hand.

Woodstock rubbed against my leg as I turned off the faucet and wrapped a paper towel around my palm. I winced and hissed through my teeth.

Iann stirred on the bed and blinked. His eyes widened as they focused on me, and he shot up to his feet. “What happened?” His voice was hoarse. He wrapped both his hands around mine and lifted up the bloody paper towel. He looked at me when I didn’t answer.

I shrugged and pulled away, then ripped another towel from the roll with my free hand. “I tripped the other day, but it started bleeding again.”

He edged closer to me and pressed the towel down on my hand.

I struggled for words. A boy hadn’t stayed until morning since . . . well, not since Danny. The fact that we hadn’t actually done anything only made it more awkward. “Good morning, I guess,” I said.

The corner of his mouth tugged into a smile. “Yeah, good morning.”

I tucked the napkin around my hand and under my thumb. “Coffee?”

He ran a hand through his pillow hair, making it even wilder. “Yeah, that sounds good. Go ahead and sit down; I’ll make it.”

“Really? I can do it,” I insisted, reaching for the french press.

He was quicker. “I got it,” he said, his fingers grasping the handle.

“The kettle is on the stove.” I lingered in the kitchen as he surveyed the counter before making his move.

He grabbed the kettle and brought it to the sink. “I’ve got this. Go sit down,” he said over his shoulder.

I sat on the edge of the bed, absently running my fingers along the scar on my neck. My cheeks grew hot as I recalled the previous night. My head pounded, my hangover more painful since I’d added Xanax to the mix. It ached more when I considered all that I had told him.

He didn’t seem bothered by it, though. Iann set the french press on the bar and poked his head around the corner. “Where are your mugs?”

Maybe he had forgotten? Best case, he had been less sober than he’d appeared and completely forgotten everything I’d said.

“Oh, above the sink,” I said, snapping out of my thoughts.

He disappeared back into the kitchen. The burnt chocolaty aroma wafted throughout the apartment, the clank of ceramic in the background. He reemerged and poured from the press before handing the Snoopy and Woodstock mug to me. He kept the Charlie Brown mug with a chip on the side for himself. He pulled out a chair from the table and turned it to face me before taking a seat. “So, you’re a big Charlie Brown fan, huh?”

I glanced at my mug and nodded.

“Where did you find these? I never see this kind of thing anymore,” he asked, then took a sip. While he was trying to act cool, this attempt at small talk betrayed the awkwardness of our situation.

I rested the bottom of my mug against my injured palm, the heat soothing and piercing at the same time. “When I first moved here, there used to be a swap meet over on Damen every Saturday.” I gestured to Woodstock, his eyes barely visible underneath the TV. “That’s where I found the cat too.”

He had found me, actually. When I’d reached for those mugs underneath a folding table, he’d been sitting right behind, tufts of his fur sticking up in weird spots, like raging orange flames. He’d followed me when I went to pay for the mugs and then trailed me as I walked back to my apartment. In the following weeks, he had appeared at my door nearly every time I opened it. I’d started leaving a can of tuna in front of the door until one day he came in.

Iann followed my gaze to Woodstock. “He was a stray?”

In a lot of ways, he still was. Some days when I left, he would follow me out and disappear for the day only to return and scratch on the door at night. I let him come and go as he pleased. After all, he had survived in Chicago on his own long before he chose me as his roommate. “Yeah, he followed the mugs home with me. That’s why I call him Woodstock.” I tapped my fingernail to the yellow bird on my mug.

“I didn’t even put that together.” Iann laughed.