Chapter Forty

July is a hot mess.

            Between my new job as assistant manager of the local ice cream shop, Igloo Ice Cream, and going to summer college classes to get a head start for the fall, I haven’t been able to take a breath. I also have to start annotating and beginning course work for future classes too, just to stay ahead of the game. No time to breathe. No time to focus on other things…or people.

        “Yes, Brent, there haven’t been any problems,” I say, juggling the phone between my shoulder and cheek while watering the plants in Mom’s hospital room. The phone slips but I catch it with my left hand before it falls.

        “Are you sure? Have the bills been paid on time or are you getting any late notices?” he asks a little out of breath since he’s calling me while going on a jog. Of course, he could talk and jog and have time for oxygen at the same time. He’s the athletic one.

        I sigh. “Yes, for the fifteenth time, Brent. With both our incomes combined, we’ve made the cut...for this month anyway.” I set the watering can down and shut the windows in the room. It’s too hot and a waste of free air conditioning—well not technically free because we still have the medical bills. “I applied for the school’s financial aid program and told them about…you know…Mom.”

        “That’s good,” he replies. “Where are you going again?”

        “Pace University.”

            “Where?”

            “It’s in the city,” I tell him. I touch one of the petals of the peonies by the windows. It’s bright and pink with its freshness still intact. I had brought it in this morning. “It’s no Columbia or N.Y.U. but I’m just glad a college has accepted me. And that it’s in the city so I’m close to Mom.”

        “I’m proud of ya. You’re not as dumb as I thought,” Brent responds. I roll my eyes. I hear him take several breaths, probably ending his run. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.”

        “No, no,” I say, “it’s fine. I know you have to stay in Florida with your football scholarship and all that. It’d be stupid to leave all of that. But I hear it’s scorching down there this summer.”

        Brent laughs and I hear him gulping down some water or whatever he’s drinking. He sighs. “It’s a real killer,” he agrees. “I need to get a gym membership. Running outside is deadly.”

        “I bet it’s also sizzling in the city since there’s so many people around and now that it’s tourist season,” I tell him. “I’ll have to go take a full campus tour soon so I don’t get lost during this heat.” I turn around and sit down in my favorite plastic chair—so comfortable by the way—and look at Mom. “Speaking of the city…I’ve been wondering. I want to move Mom into a hospital in New York.”

        Sounds of rummaging and doors closing echo through the phone. “What?” he says. The sounds stop. “Why? Move her into the city?”

        On my end the only sounds are the machines beeping, Mom’s slow breathing, and my voice. “Because. It’ll be so much easier if I want to live in dorms or maybe a shared apartment—I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet—but I definitely want to live closer to campus. The commute would be too much money for everyday and I’d barely have time or cash to see Mom.”

        “Yeah, I guess, but, wouldn’t that be such a hassle?”

        “It’ll be a hassle either way. NYC is too far from here that I go to college and come home everyday and then do my classes and have time for Mom,” I admit and a frown forms on my face. My mother isn’t a hassle to me. She’s my mother. I’d travel oceans just for her. I would never want her to feel that so I correct myself. “If I had the time and money, I’d visit her whenever I could but since we have to be realistic, I just can’t afford it.”

        Brent is silent for a while. “I guess.”

        “Yeah?”

        “Yeah,” he confirms. “Yeah, do it. If anything goes wrong, just give me a call.”

        “I hope it won’t,” I reply, “but thanks. I’ll call you later? I have work soon.”

        “Okay, sounds good. B—” The line disconnects and I roll my eyes. I didn’t even get to say goodbye because of course, Brent is like that. I miss him yet I want to choke him at the same time.

        For a while, I just sit and readjust the blankets on Mom. I make sure they’re not too heavy so she has trouble breathing and not too light that she gets chilly from the air conditioning. Not that I can tell. I can’t tell anything. She hasn’t moved in, well, forever. I hate thinking like that but it’s true. From the moment I saw her on this bed to now, she’s been the same.

        I lean over and brush her hair over and away from her face. I’m sure she’s changing but I’ve been visiting so frequently—to get in as much time as possible before school—that I haven’t noticed. Her hair is probably longer, her skin older. The nurses do their best to wash and bathe her and I thank them for that. But the fact my mother can’t do it herself makes me remember how much I hate this. My mother was—is a strong woman. My role model.  

        Dwelling on thoughts only depress me so I stay away from the fact that my mother is in a coma. I fill my thoughts with the future. She’ll wake up soon. I know she will. We’re both strong women. She’ll wake up and she’ll be so happy and proud I’m already in college. I’ll tell her about how she’s missed nothing—that prom and graduation weren’t even fun—and we can continue our merry way. I’ll tell her about a certain boy and our two separate worlds. Our story. Our ending. And then she’ll hold me in her arms while I cry over my first actual relationship but it’s okay because I’ll have my mother and a lifetime for boys.

        Right?

        My hand slips into her left one. My fingers trail her veins and the slight wrinkles on the back of her palm. The hands that raised me and fed me and worked for me. The hands that created beauty and art with whatever, whomever, and wherever she was. She was—is—magic. She’s my mother.

        “I love you, Mom,” I tell her because I don’t tell her enough. I give her hand a kiss and hold it tight. I’m just glad she’s alive and here with me. I’m grateful. “I love you so much.”

        Suddenly, something happens and I’m fifty percent sure I’m hallucinating from the endless nights of overthinking and missing a certain boy but then I snap out of it because the other half of me is sure it happened.

        My mother grips my hand back.

        She doesn’t grip it back hardly nor intensely but as if she’d been giving me a comforting squeeze. The kind she gave me the first day of high school after she’d dropped me off. I know my mother’s comfort grips better than I know myself. She can hear me. She can.

        I jump out of my chair. “Mom? Mom, can you hear me?”

        Her eyes remain closed and her body is still. I don’t know what I’m expecting. Her to just snap straight up and say, “Yes, Ivory, I can hear you! I’m awake now! I officially quit being a coma patient! Let’s go grab some food now!”? But that little feeling in me doesn’t go away.

        Her breathing hasn’t changed. Her monitor hasn’t beeped. She’s exactly the same as before but what I felt—her hand holding mine back—that’s enough to send me running to get a doctor. It’s hope. It’s a chance.

        I’m running down the halls, screaming for a doctor. People stare with curious eyes and scared eyes as I crazily scream and yell, frantically trying to get someone—anyone—who’s medically licensed to come look at my mother. I don’t care if I’m crazy but I know that what just happened was real. Immediately, a nurse comes up to me.

        “What’s wrong? Is everything alright?” she asks. Her eyes are wide and she probably expects me to say that something about someone’s water broke or that someone got shot but no it’s much more important than that to me.

        “My mother—she moved her hand,” I tell her, panting.

        Her eyes search my face, looking for what I might be trying to say. “What?” she asks.

        “She moved her hand!” I scream.

        Now she looks at me like I belong in the hospital itself. “Could you elaborate?” she says kindly. She tries to put on her most understanding face.

        “My mother, she’s in a coma, but I was grabbing her hand one second and the next, I felt something and I swear to god! She squeezed my hand back! She can hear me! She heard me!” I yell and I’m moving my hands in the air to try to show her what happened which doesn’t make sense but she nods skeptically and quickly calls for a doctor.

        We all race back to my mother’s room where a doctor checks my mother’s heartbeat with his stethoscope and then calls another doctor and they roll my mother away for scans. But this is good. This is showing me that they’re searching for a possibility that she actually can respond to what she hears. She’s going to wake up soon. It’s real. It’s real!

        There’s only one person I want to tell.

        The doctor informs me that they’re going to run various tests and results will come out later in the day and not to get my hopes up too much though. I nod so aggressively that I think the doctor wants to send me to the psychiatric ward of the hospital but he just smiles uneasily and walks away. I basically jump with joy out of my mother’s room and down the halls. In the elevator, I’m giddy and I’m smiling because this is it. I’ll get to surprise Brent when he gives me a call tomorrow.

        When the doors open at the third floor for the elderly woman to get off, I’m surprised when I see a familiar face waiting to step in the elevator.

        “Mark?”

        He looks up from his phone and once realization seeps in, his eyes widen. I haven’t seen him in a month...since I last saw him. My cheeks grow hot as I remember our little collision in Mom’s room. His feelings. My words. But he looks different. Better? His face is shaven and his hair is styled. Even in a suit.

        “Ivory,” Mark says softly. I kind of like how he does that. Always says my name ever so softly like I’m important. He puts his phone in his pocket.

        “Hey, how are you?” I ask, smiling. Smiling at him is okay, right? Of course it is.

        He surprisingly smiles back. Last time he acted like I had a gun to his throat. Mark steps into the elevator and presses for the doors to close. Nobody else is in the elevator. “I’m good,” he answers as the doors slide in front of him. He looks over his shoulder to where I am. “And you?”

          “Good...good.”

        Cue awkward silence.

        He coughs. I pick my nails. He taps his foot. I hum.

        “So my mother is reacting to sounds now,” I say to create conversation but also because it’s been bubbling inside of me. I have to tell someone.

        Mark turns around fully, a grin on his face. “Really?”

        I grin right back. He seems as happy as me. “Yes!” I tell him. “She was holding my hand—well, I was holding her hand—but she squeezed my hand back!”

        “That’s great! It’s only a matter of time before she wakes up then, right?”

        “I hope so!” I bite my lip, trying to reign in my smile that’s covered my entire face. “I’m so happy. This is just what I need to start a fresh year at college. If she’s there with me for that, I won’t ever ask for anything else.”

        “You know something?” Mark looks down at his feet and a soft expression spreads across his face. “I’ll finally get to meet your mother.” He looks up at me, smiling.

        “What?” My eyebrows wrinkle. “No, what about that time you...uh….”

        He laughs and his Adam’s apple vibrates with his laugh. “Yeah, I haven’t met her.” His lips meet together. “I wish and hope I do someday. See the person that raised you.”

        I look at him. “I hope you meet her too. Scratch that, you definitely will.”

        Mark’s smile fades. “I bet Lee’s met your mom, huh?”

        I freeze, my eyes darting to the floor. “Oh, erm….”

        “No, no, it’s cool,” he says, putting his hands up. “I’m not going to be that person anymore. You and I are friends now. We’re cool.” He adds in a toothy grin to show me that he’s still the immature and goofy guy I liked (as a friend).  

        A smile escapes me but slips off my face after remembering the topic of this question. “Actually, he hasn’t ever formally met my mother either. I haven’t introduced Lee as my...you know...my person,” I say and he arches his eyebrows. I laugh but that loses its fuel too. “But...I don’t think that’ll ever happen either. We’re not really together anymore.”

        Mark’s mouth falls open and his eyebrows stretch upwards to his forehead. He blinks and then he shifts his head looking from wall to wall, as if someone’s stabbed him and he never saw it coming. “You...you...he...what?” he says, looking more affected than I should’ve been.

        “Yeah, things didn’t work out.” I give him a what-can-you-do shrug.

        He presses his lips together. “I refuse to believe that. You and Lee? Things just couldn’t have ‘not worked’ between you two.” His eyebrows pinch together. “No way in hell.”

        I look down, my chest slumping with heaviness. “Well…yeah.”

        “Hey!” he says, patting my shoulder. “Don’t be so down. I’ll take you out for lunch. Where’d you like to go? A cute diner? Ice cream? Name it.”  

        “Oh, god,” I groan. “Not ice cream, please, no ice cream! I’ve literally been surrounded by ice cream day and night all summer and now it’s lost its taste.”

        Mark chuckles, his hand slipping from my shoulder. “I didn’t know you were such an ice cream enthusiast.”

        “I’m not.” I reach into my back pocket and bring out a little pin with my name in cursive on it. I secure it onto my shirt. “Hi! Welcome to Igloo Ice Cream! What would you like today? Brr.”

        The elevator doors open and Mark nearly trips over from laughing so much. People waiting give us a glare—Laughing at a hospital? Where people die? Rude—but we both step out. Mark is doubled over, hands on his knees.

        “Brr? Brr?” He doesn’t stop laughing. Actually, he sounds like he’s an old man wheezing in and out.

        I roll my eyes, hiding my smile. “I genuinely don’t understand why you think it’s so funny?”

        He stands straight again, his shoulders shaking a little still to keep from laughing. He hooks an arm around my shoulder and drags me with him. “Lead me to thy workplace!” And just like that we’re back to normal. Normal. I don’t know when I considered this normal. But it feels good to have some stability in my life again.

        I almost forget to ask why he was in the hospital the first place.

 “And this is where I make deee-licious ice cream!”

            The tiny bell rings as I push open the glass door to Igloo Ice Cream. A cold blast of air conditioning blows my hair a little into Mark’s face and he pretends to choke. I scoff and stand aside so he can step inside.

            He puts his hands on his hips. “Wow,” he says, scanning the tiny shop. There’s about four people here.

            “Yeah if you didn’t notice, it’s igloo themed,” I inform, gesturing my hand to the ice blue tablecloths and the painted walls imitating the inside of an igloo. “Real original, right?”

            “Actually, yeah,” he replies, laughing.

            “Okay,” I say, looking around. There’s nobody behind the counter at the moment which means Lazy Lewis probably ditched the minute his shift was over. If the boss found out nobody was working the counter, I’d surely get fired. “You sit down and pick what you want and I’ll go change.”

            He nods and I watch him turn and take a seat in a booth by the window. One more time, he glances around and smiles at the corniness of it all. He reaches over and examines the fake plastic candle that’s running on batteries. I smile watching him before leaving to change.

            When I come back out, there’s a howl of laughter.

            “No way!” Mark is bent over his seat, laughing so hard everyone in the store is staring at him in disapproval. He stands, his head tilted back and shoulders shaking, one hand covering his stomach.

            “Shutupshutupshutup,” I mutter, trying to keep my voice down. Don’t need more attention. I waddle over to where Mark is standing.

            “Oh my god, you’re adorable!” Mark yells, rushing over to wrap his arms around me to squeeze me hard. He shakes me around. “Ivory the Penguin!” he announces, hugging me again.

            I try to struggle out of his grip but the penguin costume I have to wear doesn’t leave much room to stretch my body far. It’s big and fat and smells like a dirty car. The hat part that I tie around my neck also tends to choke me often but I do what I gotta do. “Let go of me, you disobedient swine!” I yell, trying to shake myself out of his grip but I’m sure I look like a fat penguin dying.

            He pulls back, his hands reaching to squish my cheek. “This is the best thing ever!” Mark reaches into his black pants and withdraws his phone. Quickly, before I can move or attack, he snaps a photo of me. And then ten more.

            I swing my fat flabby arms around. “Stop! No! Mark, I hate you!”

            “Just try, Ivory the Penguin! Just try to hate me!” He steps back from my claws and acts like a photographer, taking a picture of every angle of the costume. “More passion, honey! More attitude! When the people of The Internet see these pictures after I tweet it, your store will be a hit!”

            “Mark, you wouldn’t!”

            “Too late.”

            And that’s how, at this moment, I end up digging a hole in the small grassy backyard of Igloo’s Ice cream so I can bury Mark Welch and this costume he finds hilarious so much.

            Kidding.

            But I do end up in the small grassy backyard where we leave the trash. There are about five bags of trash already, more than usual. I step back into the loud and boisterous store, filled with twenty to thirty cramped people and don’t even mention the line outside.

            “Hey Ivy or whatever, can I get an orange sorbet?”

        “Yeah, I want that too!”

        “I want a cone of vanilla and strawberry!”

        I walk up to the counter calmly where a billion people are throwing their money at me and demanding the different items we have on our menu. True to Mark’s words, his tweet to his many followers got a hundred more customers than we had before. I’m too busy trying to serve them all to be embarrassed. I called for backup but Lazy Lewis refuses to come to work again and Crazy Carly doesn’t even answer the phone. The boss is on vacation and so I’m alone.

        Whatever, more tips for me.

        “Snap out of it, pengy,” a voice calls as I blink out of my reverie. Two strong hands are reaching into the tubs of ice cream and scooping up people’s orders. For a minute I think I see him—Lee, that is—but my heart squeezes when the illusion disappears and Mark appears. Lee’s not always going to come save the day. It’s time to save my own day.   

        “Pengy?” I ask, nudging him aside and taking the scoop from Mark. “I got this, you don’t have to do it.”

        “Yeah, Pengy, google it. It’s not just a shortcut for penguin.” He steps back, hands up in the air. “Take it away then.”

        I grin and the day rolls on. Masses of people I’ve never seen around here flock to the small store, taking up seats and standing when none can be found. The tips are rewarding as I had expected. Around sunset, it’s finally calm again as people head out and go use the summer night to do more crazy things than to get ice cream.

        “That’ll be three-fifty,” I tell the preteen girl as I take her five dollar bill. She seems to be the last one in line. There are still a couple of people lingering around at some booths, mostly families taking their kids out for dessert. “Here’s your change.”  

        The girl takes her one-fifty and her vanilla swirl before walking away. I finally sigh and let my shoulders down from my tense pose all day. I grab a chair and basically melt into it, letting my head hang off the chair. My eyes droop shut and I fight falling asleep.

        “Tough day, Pengy?”

        I open my eyes and Mark has his head above mine, grinning. His head is close, really close. I jump out of my chair and he swiftly moves back as if he expected that.

        He’s in casual clothes now. He had walked in and out a couple times, doing his own business and then coming back whenever he was done. Now he stands in fitted jeans and a gray wife beater, a necklace hanging from his neck. His hand holds a cone of strawberry ice cream.

        I cast my eyes away from him and his defined arms. “Where’d you get that ice cream?” I busy myself by washing the scoopers and closing the tubs of ice cream. All I can think of how good it’ll feel to go to sleep tonight after a long day.

        “When you were sleeping on the job, I took a cone. I did do some work and helped you so I guess you can say I took my reward,” he explains, leaning against the counter.

        I turn and without his suit, he kind of looks normal. In fact, he looks like a neighborhood bad boy. The kind of guy I’d be intimidated by because everything about his poise and aura would scream confidence and charm. Though, his cute little pink ice cream makes him look a little more harmless.

        “I did not sleep on the job!” I argue. Did I fall asleep?

        “So you were just sitting in the chair with your eyes closed?” he asks. “And you didn’t hear me call your name fifteen times?”

        I look at the floor. “Oh. Well, I guess I did. I’m tired, okay?”

        He laughs, handing me his cone. “I’m kidding. You want some? I don’t like the cone.”

        My eyes move from his extended hand to the cone. I snatch it and he mockingly gasps at my rudeness. “Good thing I like the cone,” I mumble. Mark justs sits back on the counter and smiles. “Do you want your share of the tips? You did help a little and I kind of owe you for getting people here.”

        Mark chuckles again, shaking his head. “No, Ivory, I helped you because I wanted to, not for the tips. Also because you’re such a cute penguin.”

        I’m dying in my suit. The air conditioning doesn’t help the thick fabric of the costume. “Shut up!” I say, throwing the last of the cone at him. He catches it and throws it in the trash like he’s an NBA basketball player.

        “Score!” he says when it goes in and imitates the noises a crowd would make. The trash is literally inches away from him but I let him bask in his glory, rolling my eyes. “But since you say you owe me, I guess you could give me something.”

        “Yeah?” I start untying the hat and unbuttoning my costume. “What?”

        “Dinner.”

        “Dinner?”

        “Yes, I’ll let you pay and everything so you don’t feel like you owe me anything. Just a casual dinner between friends,” he says, his eyes starting to wander from my face. “Casual,” he repeats and I see his hands grip the counter a little harder. He’s nervous. He thinks I’m not over his outburst in my mother’s hospital room. I am...I think.

        “Okay,” I agree, nodding. We’ve finally returned to being normal and I want to continue it. “You name the place but keep in mind that I’m not rich. In fact, I’m pretty broke at the moment.”

        He laughs. “I got you. What about my favorite place in the city?”

        “In the city?” Everything is pricey in the city. I can probably afford some fast food there only.

        “Yeah, it was my favorite place in college. Promise you it’s not expensive,” he says after seeing my face. “Besides, you said I could pick.”

        I roll my eyes. “Fine. I do owe you and I guess you could show me around since I’m going to be attending college in the city soon.”

        “You are?” His eyes are wide and a smile breaks out onto his face.

        I start closing up the cash register and locking up the ice cream in the freezer. Heaven forbid someone rob an ice cream store. After double checking everything, I turn back to him. “Yep, Pace University.”

        “Cool!” he exclaims. “That’s near where I’m working at my dad’s. I’m also thinking of continuing my college classes so maybe we’ll run into each other.”

        “Maybe,” I say, raising my eyebrows. I check my watch. “You want to head out now? I need to head home and change and take a quick shower but it’ll take thirty minutes max. You down?”

        “Yeah, I’ll pick you up in thirty then.”

I'm back back back back. 

I really did not plan this hiatus, guys. I have no idea how it happened. But apparently I was gone for like three months? Time goes by so fast. I basically hibernated and now here I am. Let me update you on my life despite your interest in it.

1) Spain. I'm back from Spain. Half of February I was in Spain on an exchange trip. Let me tell you...It was LIFE CHANGING. I'm not like super different but it really did make me see the culture differences and their society vs. ours. I would talk about it but then I'd write like fifty pages on it. I visited Madrid, Segovia, Toledo (fav), and Granada. It was so fun, I can't describe. I had fun. I let go. I messed with boys. I explored. I ate. I laughed. I screamed from the top of my lungs from balconies with beautiful views and apple sider in hand, pretending to be drinking champagne. I really loved it and I really love Spain. Everyone and everything about it. I'm already planning my next trip. I want to go to a more raw place this time. Somewhere where I can do service work and give back to less fortunate communities. Fingers crossed my parents let me go. I'm in love with going places and now that I've lit the torch, it's spreading like wildfire inside me. 

2) I got a job. These trips aren't going to pay themselves. It's my first job and I basically cashier at a sandwich store down the street. It's really local and I've only worked three days but I love it already. They left me solo on the third day despite me being in training (bc of not enough people and stuff) and I was so scared because I'd be alone and I knew I'd mess up...but I did fine? Like this week has been so good to me and I turned out fine. In fact, it was so fun. Cashiering is pretty boring but I love that I have my own job now and I can kind of do something. First paycheck, I'm buying my mother a necklace. I promised her when I was like 11 that I would but um, I have a minimum wage paycheck...so I'll just buy her fake diamonds, haha.

3) It's 2015. Last time I updated it was 2014. Time goes by so fast, I cannot stress this enough. Let me try to explain to you how I think. This is what my father said: Imagine the universe is a room. In that room, there is a small plate (the ones they use to put tea cups on). That's our galaxy. Now one tiny tiny tiny tiny section of that is our solar system. And then even tinier than that are our planets. And even tinier than that is Earth. And even more tinier is us and our planet and our land and our people. Do you see how small we are? How short our lives are? We are a breath in the universe. One breath. That's our life. My resolutions include never forgetting that and making sure I remember that before placing my decisions. Risks. Love. Hate. Dreams. I'm not wasting time anymore.

And that's all you missed. Just me and my overwhelming thoughts and disability to shut my brain up because it literally just keeps going and going about life and deep stuff. I guess Spain did inspire me in a way. I still have no fucking idea where I'm headed in life and I should probably get one soon but that's okay. For now, I'm just going to sit back with my paradise flower candle and my books and this cup of coffee and fuzzy socks and just relax.

Signing off,

Major Cordelia. Peace!

P.S. picture of Mark to the side in this chapter (heart eyes). And I know I keep talking about the storm that's eventually going to happen but I'm trying to weave it into this book without making it seem random.

LOVE YOU GUYS THANK U FOR THE ENDLESS SUPPORT ♥ sorry for vomitting my thoughts

P.P.S. if u want pics of spain just @indiecigars on twitter. AND SEND IN ARTWORK IF U HAVE ANY BC I LUV WHEN U GUYS DO THAT

comment ; blue swiss wine if u read all of this crap ♥♥♥♥