UNBROKEN-Love and Relationships while Disabled

Chapter 3

We walked back along the road through the vineyards, sweaty and covered in mud. The afternoon was drowsy with sunshine and bees nuzzling in the blooming fiddlehead and lupine.

Phoenix smiled at the tiny, green inchworm on his finger. "He's doing exercises for us."

I laughed. "He's making a little omega sign."

Phoenix's smile faded. A furrow grew between his brows and he plopped down in the grass between rows of budding grape vines.

I sat down in front of him. He was frowning at the worm now. "Do you think he'll become a butterfly?"

"I think so."

His gaze pierced me. "Do you ever wish you were a butterfly?"

"Instead of human? Yes. Butterflies are much less complicated."

He blinked. "You don't want to sit next to me?"

I scooted over and sat next to him. We both watched the worm as he stretched out long, then pulled up into an arch, crawling up Phoenix's wrist.

"My mom wants to take my Social Security money, I think," he said. "It's been her plan all along, I guess. Keep me there, help her breed dogs." He gently placed the worm on a dangling grapevine and stared down at his hands.

"That's not right," I said.

"My dream is to become a professional athlete," he said, staring at me in a challenging way.

"My dream is to be a professional writer."

"Do you think I could be a professional anything?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

He gazed at me a long while. "I feel like if I stay in Shandon, I'm going to die soon."

"Why do you feel that way?"

"Signs and symbols, like in movies and songs and patterns."

"You may be misreading the signs. I do that sometimes. I have that doom feeling, the fear, and I sit around waiting for something that never comes."

"Never say never," he said. Then he laid back in the grass and did sit-ups, his lips moving silently as he counted to three hundred.

We trudged back into town and went to the park. He spotted two people over at the tables and made a beeline for them, sitting in the shade at their feet.

I sat next to him and grinned. "Hi. I'm Liz."

"Oh, you don't know them?" Phoenix said. "This is Manny and Annalise."

Manny shook my hand, but Annalise just raised her eyebrows. "I'm, uh, gonna go sit over here." She picked up her 40 of King Cobra and went to sit at the next table.

We all watched her go. "What did I do?" I asked.

Manny shot me an apologetic look and got up. "I'd better go with her."

Manny trotted over to sit next to his girlfriend, who was shooting me scowls. I looked at Phoenix, who was hanging his head and tearing blades of grass into long strips.

"I don't even know her," I said.

"I don't know why people have to be like that, like when I just want to play softball with them, and then it's finally my turn and they all want to quit. And Deborah just gave me her mitt and bat and all her stuff and said I could play by myself but I don't want to play softball by myself." He grimaced. "I was supposed to go to the gym yesterday, and now I almost wish I had, because then I feel like we'd all still be friends, you know?"