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I was barely in the front door when Maddi ran right into me. Quickly, I caught her before she fell and helped her back to her feet. Somewhere in the house, I could hear Ryan shouting something. I raised an eyebrow at Frost’s oldest sister and let her go when she had her balance. “Hi, Maddi.”
Maddi bit her lip shyly, smiling at me. “Hey, Poe. You’re coming with us to the recital?” When I nodded, still too mentally preoccupied to find words, she beamed. “Awesome. Can I ask you a huge favor?”
I frowned in hesitation. I gave favors as often as I made promises. “You can ask, but I don’t know if I’ll comply.”
She giggled, but there was something sad hidden in her eyes, as if she knew why I responded that way. As if this beautiful, giggling girl had been broken once too. Her smile softened and in place of the giggling girl, I saw her in the blink of an eye become someone much older. “I know you think all he sees are scars. Will you let me show him something else?”
“What do you mean, Maddi? What are you talking about?”
Very gently, Maddi wrapped her hand around my wrist, right over my scars. My eyes widened infinitesimally and, in a low whisper, I asked her, “How do you know? What do you know?”
Maddi stepped a little closer to me, closer than I normally allowed anyone to stand, but something about her demeanor made it okay. “He hasn’t told any of us anything you wouldn’t want us to know, Poe. But it wasn’t so long ago that he looked just like you do now.” I looked down at her pale, unscarred hand on my arm and a very sad corner of my mind wondered just what had happened to this family to make Frost like a shattered mirror and lend Maddi and Trina ancient souls. The sheer tininess of her hand chilled me; it was even smaller than mine and seemed a symbol of her fragility. Maddi’s sigh brought my gaze back to hers. Her blue eyes were unbearably sad and wet with pity. “I want to give you a chance to make him forget the scars for a few hours, just long enough to see the way he really looks at you. Frost sees every line and bruise on your skin, but he also sees far past that. I’m sure you can’t tell.”
I shook my head in confusion and anxiety. “Maddi, you’re not making any sense. Why would you think…”
The look of unending pain in her eyes stopped my words. She whispered, “Because I know what it’s like to have people look at you and not see past the scars. And I know you need a chance to escape. Just pretend for four hours that none of it ever happened. Pretend you’ve never been to a funeral and never seen an ounce of hate in someone’s eye.”
I sighed and felt my careful mask crumble just a bit as I looked into her desperate blue eyes and understood. She wasn’t as shattered as me. No. But she had been subjected to a gut-wrenching pain that she could not forget and needed to believe that someone like me could let it go and be normal, at least for one night. Because if I could, it would be proven easy for her to try.
So, even though I knew no amount of makeup or laughter or pretending could ever make me forget anything I had endured, I plastered on the most convincing smile I’d ever executed in my life and gave her permission to dress me up.
----
Frost sat in the uncomfortable chair in the waiting area for far longer than he could ever have wanted to. He had long since memorized the room: the taupe wallpaper with surreal swooshes, the off-white carpet, the oak furniture with grey padding. He had not dared to pick up one of the old magazines on the coffee table before him. He didn’t want to. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be here at all. Even after years of coming here, he still couldn’t decide whether it did any good.
Finally, Shirley nodded to him and smiled, motioning him towards the corridor on the far side of the room. Frost nodded and smiled his thanks, then stood and trekked down the hall to an office he knew well. He knocked and studied the name plate on the door for a moment while he waited for a reply.Dr. Albert Grey, Psychiatrist.
“Come in!”
He entered the office, and sat in the plush armchair across from Dr. Grey. Some part of him secretly wished he could smell the chair when Grey wasn’t watching, though he knew full well that the barely-there scent of soap and apples he attributed to Poe would be long-gone after a week and a half. Then again, very little of his feelings for her were rational in the first place. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise to him.
“Frost.” Dr. Grey leaned forward in his desk and vaguely motioned to a yellow legal pad with blocky writing covering it. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about, first off?”
There was plenty, of course, most of it about Poe. But he wouldn’t say that. He shook his head ‘no’ and Grey nodded, knowing he was hiding his thoughts as always. “Then,” Grey said, “There are some things that have been troubling me recently. Perhaps you could enlighten me.”
“I can’t tell you what’s wrong with Poe if she won’t tell you herself,” Frost said, knowing that Grey had unearthed something about his relationship with Poe, at the least its existence, at his meeting with her.
Grey nodded, his mouth tight. “I was concerned about how what she’s dealing with is affecting you, actually.”
Frost groaned, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means. I’ve known you both for years and I know how delicate both of you are in the case of loss.” Grey caught his eye, his face serious. “Frost, I’m sure your loved ones are very concerned as well. I want to know your intentions, because if this does not end well, it will have tragic consequences for you both.”
Frost shook his head and gave Grey the grimmest smile he had ever seen. “I have no choice in that. You know I’m analytical. I’ve played this out in my head a million different ways.”
“Forgive me, but you’ve taken masochistic turns before. You’ve seen that none of those million paths turn out well. Is this then a way to punish yourself? Allowing yourself to fall for this girl and then watching her fall apart?”
As Grey watched, a very dark shadow fell over Frost’s eyes and he chuckled once in a peculiar, sepulchral way. “Maybe. That’s probably exactly what it’ll be. But you know, I’m not doing this to punish myself. If I could turn away, if I knew she was truly lost, maybe it would be possible. I don’t know. But because there is one path in among those nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand some others in which I can save her, I have to do this.”
Grey shook his head in warning. “Frost, this is not like working a case. Those conspiring against her are not just alcoholics from The Heights. They’re in her head, in her heart, in her memory. Every object she touches, every way the wind blows, every word every person says, holds some dark significance in her mind. Healing her is like trying to extract a cancer that has spread to every region of her body. Chemotherapy, if that’s what you fancy yourself, will only melt away her body and prolong her pain.”
“What does that make you? The nurse who’d rather just make her comfortable while she dies?” Frost snapped, his eyes as harsh as blades. Every muscle visible to Grey, in his hands, his neck, and his face, stood out. His knuckles were clenched white where he gripped the arms of his chair.
Grey, for the first time since Frost had begun seeing him, looked truly sad to the point of heartbrokenness. “Frost, this isn’t healthy. I encouraged Poe to try to let you in, but I fear I may have been wrong. I can see it in your eyes. You’re breaking each other down.”
“I love her!” Frost cried out, his anger seeming to shatter and fall away in shards around him, like broken armor. All at once, Grey saw once more the grieving, desperate young man as he had met him several years ago. “Don’t you understand?” Frost gasped, his eyes wild and wet with miserable tears. “I have to believe I can help her, that I can endure everything she is long enough to heal her. Because if I can’t….” He didn’t finish and he didn’t need to. Grey knew exactly where his thoughts had trailed off to.
After several minutes of silence during which Frost composed himself, he muttered quietly, “Can you tell me what she’s hiding from me? I’m afraid to touch her, afraid to say the wrong thing because I don’t know what she has bottled up inside her. I know that sometime when I least expect it, I’m going to hurt her beyond repair because she won’t tell me what happened to her. She terrifies me.”
