The Easy Part of Impossible - Sarah Tomp Page 0,31
ADHD didn’t mean she was stupid, somehow the two ideas always ended up together.
While Ria swallowed her pill, Mom went on, “Do you know how many calories are in a beer? Wine coolers and mixed drinks are even worse.”
Mom wasn’t counting calories. It was the days of no diving and what they’d all lost. If Ria had been drinking, maybe Mom could admit she was mad.
“You miss Benny keeping me in line, don’t you?”
“We miss you doing what you love,” said Dad.
She got up and took her plate to the sink, dumped the food down the garbage disposal, let the grinding roar drown out her parents’ worries.
She was used to their concern wrapped up in irritation. But, as usual, they had their focus on the wrong thing. They saw what she told them to see, and yet she was still amazed at all the things they ignored. But then again, bruises from smacking the water look the same as bruises from getting smacked from a hand. Or pushed into a wall. Being held face-up in a shower of cold water didn’t leave any mark at all. They still didn’t know she’d chipped her tooth.
Sometimes she’d picked fights with them, thinking they’d see how she was hurting, but all the while afraid of what would happen if they did. They’d be so disappointed, so disillusioned if they knew everything she’d been through. She couldn’t do that to them. So, she’d learned to swallow her frustration, to ignore their blatant obliviousness. She couldn’t blame them. She knew how easy it was to miss what was right there.
When she turned around, Mom was beside her, waiting. Looking weird, her cheeks all red and blotchy. “Did Benny do . . . something . . . inappropriate? Did he try something sexual?”
“You can tell us,” said Dad. “No matter what happened.”
“God. No. You know he’s not like that.” Ria needed to do something, anything, with her arms and legs. She paced back and forth in front of them, her mind a swirl of confusion. “He would never.”
And he wouldn’t. He was the one who insisted everyone wear clothes over their suits whenever they went anywhere at meets. He’d broken a reporter’s camera when he took a picture of Ria on the deck. Photos of her in motion, at work, were acceptable. Photos of her posing in her suit were not. Benny was obsessively, passionately, desperately all about the diving. He was far closer to a rubberband-man than seducer. She’d never even thought to worry about anything like that.
She headed out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going? We’re not done talking to you.”
“I’m going to go for a run. To look for fun. In the sun. Won’t come back until I’m done. Look, Dad, I can write a song too.”
“Don’t go. You didn’t even eat your breakfast.”
“I had enough calories.”
“Well, all right,” said Dad. “Running will be good for you. You know that exercise produces endorphins. You’ve been missing that.”
Except she had been exercising. Running, jumping on the trampoline, but even more, caving. That was a full-body workout.
Her parents didn’t know all the things they didn’t know.
Fifteen
Ria met Cotton and Leo at the entrance of the cave, as planned. She got there first and was worried for a minute that they’d gone in without her. Then, with a bluster of voices and laughter, they appeared on the trail, already wearing their coveralls and helmets.
Her old sweats didn’t have the official look of the coveralls, but they fit her better, felt like a second skin. She didn’t own rugged boots so her running shoes would have to do. Cotton had promised he’d find her a helmet, which turned out to be an old bike helmet with a headlamp duct-taped to the brim.
“I know it’s ugly, but I think it’ll work.”
“I don’t care how it looks,” said Ria, knowing her grin was big and goofy. “It’s what I can look at with it.”
“That’s right! Not how it looks, what you look at. Looks-at, not it-looks. Looks-at, not it-looks.”
“Let’s go,” Leo said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Yes. Oh, and Ria, my parents want to meet you.”
A whiff of dread fluttered by. She would have no idea how to act around them.
“They were surprised I was at your house last night,” Cotton continued. “Apparently I didn’t tell them we went caving together. They assumed I was with Leo that day.”
“Yeah,” said Leo. “We were all surprised.”
Cotton’s bounce of a walk implied he didn’t feel any more guilty than she did.