by Stacey Kade
CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
THERA INSISTED ON PICKING me up in the turnaround at the front of the school.
“I could have walked to the car,” I told her as I pulled the passenger door open, wincing at the squeal of the hinges.
“And what if someone needs to track down our roller-skating waitress this afternoon?” she asked in a mock-serious tone. “I need you to be well rested.”
“Hi,” I said with a grin as I dropped into the seat. I’d been looking forward to this all day.
“Hi.” Her mouth curved into a welcoming smile.
Unable to resist, I leaned over the center console and kissed her. She opened her mouth beneath mine, making me groan, and her fingers, chilled from the air, slid around the back of my neck, sending a pleasant shiver through me.
I pulled back a little. “You know, we don’t have to go right away,” I murmured against her ear. “We could just—”
A car honked behind us. “Let’s go, Romeo,” someone’s dad shouted.
Thera laughed, and I sighed.
I slipped out of my backpack and dropped it on the floor, where it landed with a thud that shook the whole car, and then I shut my door.
“What do you have in there?” She frowned in the direction of my bag. “Weights?”
“I met with Mrs. Rafferty after English,” I said, pulling my seat belt on. “She gave me some old yearbooks to look through.”
“For Eli’s page?” Thera navigated her boat of a car carefully through the crowd of people.
“Yeah.” I’d skimmed the memorial pages in the selected volumes—at least that way what I’d told my mom I was doing after school wasn’t a complete fabrication. Some of the memorial pages were as much as ten years old. The hairstyles and clothes of the memorialized were frozen permanently in that time period. Their smiles beaming out from the page because they didn’t know they were going to die. They didn’t know that they wouldn’t ever have kids or grow old or be bitter or happy. They were just gone. Leaving behind a page of black-and-white photos that seemed wholly inadequate. And the longer they’d been dead, the worse it felt to look at their pages, thinking of all the things they’d missed out on. All the things Eli would miss.
“I’m sure whatever you pick will be perfect,” Thera said.
“It’s not that. Not exactly. I don’t want this”—I nudged my backpack and the yearbooks inside with my foot—“to be what people think of when they think of Eli. I don’t want this to be his future.”
She didn’t say anything, the blinker clicking quietly in the silence as we made the turn to go north to Richmond.
“It’s just, six months ago, I knew what my life was going to be. What our lives were going to be. I’d get a baseball scholarship somewhere warm. Florida. Arizona. Eli would probably stick pretty close to home and Riverwoods. Wheaton, maybe. I couldn’t wait to get out of here, but not because of him, not like that. I just wanted a chance to be me. Instead of Jace-and-Eli. Or Pastor Palmer’s kid.” I stared out the side window, watching the buildings pass by without really seeing them. “It would have been the first time we were apart for any real length of time, you know? But I knew we would be back together. On weekends or Christmas or whatever. We were different, but he was . . . the other half of me.” I lifted my shoulders helplessly. “Sometimes I feel so off balance, like the whole right side of my body is missing and I’m trying to move without it. I don’t know what to picture for my life, how to see a future that doesn’t have him in it.”
How could I imagine a future in which Eli did not have one, where he was a photo I might pull up on my phone when people asked if I had siblings? How do you explain that you’re a twin when you’re not anymore?
“It’s like someone told you to build something but took away all your materials at the last second,” Thera said. “And now you’re not even sure if you want to try with what little you’ve got left.”
I straightened up in my seat and stared at her. “Exactly.” But the knowing tone in her voice was more than empathy; it was experience.
“What about you?” I asked. “Big plans for engineering college or something?” I had no idea what kind of classes or training engineers were required to have.
“It’s complicated,” she said, keeping her gaze focused on the road ahead.
The same word Eli and I had both used to describe our family; I was positive that wasn’t a coincidence.
I shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere. I was promised hot dogs and root beer in a frosted mug.”
“Processed meat and frozen glassware? That’s all it takes with you?” she asked with a teasing smile, but it contained a hint of weariness.
“Processed meat with chili,” I corrected. “And yeah.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
But she didn’t say anything for a long moment.
“My mom is all I have. We’re on our own. My dad has never been around. Never met the guy and don’t particularly want to.” Thera didn’t sound angry, just matter-of-fact.
“But my mom has this kind of messed-up view of the world. She doesn’t care about what happens out here, it’s all about the higher power of the universe and the messages she says she gets.” Thera’s hands fluttered up from the wheel in a dramatic gesture that I presumed was meant to be an imitation of her mother. “Sometimes I think she’s hiding behind that because she doesn’t want to deal with reality.”
“Reality like . . . ,” I prompted.
“Paying bills,” Thera said in exasperation. “Keeping enough food in the pantry or the right kind. Making sure she doesn’t hurt herself. Dealing with the city when they send their letters about our grass being too long or when they try to take—” She cut herself off with a jerk of her head. “Reality for me is, I can’t leave her here by herself.” Her words sounded flat and empty, like this was something she’d recited to herself over and over again at night, as if repetition would make it more palatable. “Sometimes I can’t even be gone for school the whole day before she needs me.”
I wanted to ask why, what was wrong with Mary, because that was definitely the implication, but the tension in Thera’s arms and shoulders told me it was a no-go area.
“So even assuming I can get into one of the good engineering schools, U of I or Purdue, maybe, and get scholarships, there’s just no way.” Thera took a deep breath. “My future is at McHenry County College, taking, like, bookkeeping classes or something. Something that will get me a job in an office instead of behind a fryer.”
“That’s not right,” I burst out.
She smiled faintly. “Thanks.”
I shifted in my seat to face her. “No, I’m serious. There has to be something else you can do.” She was basically a hostage to her mother’s choices. I knew all about that. No matter where I went or what I did, I would always be Pastor Palmer’s kid when I was here, captive to standards I had no choice in.
“I appreciate the thought, but like I said, it’s complicated,” Thera said, in a tone that suggested the end of the conversation.
“But that’s such a waste,” I said. If I’d learned anything from the accident, it was that life was perilously short. Too short to not do something she obviously loved as much as those bridges on her walls. “And it’s not fair to you.”
Her mouth tightened into something closer to a grimace. “There’s not much room for fair in the equation when it comes to family.”
Which you already know. I could hear the words even though she didn’t say them.
“But, Thera, you have to—”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said sharply.
“Okay,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender. “Sorry.”
“It’s not . . .” She took another of those breaths that seemed to fill her from her head to her worn combat boots. “This is supposed to be fun. I want to have fun. Please?” she pleaded.
I wondered how little of it—fun—she was having if she was carrying that
much responsibility at home and trying to stay ahead at school.
“Sure,” I said.
Her hand left the wheel and fumbled for my palm, and then she threaded her fingers through mine.
A few minutes passed like that, with the roar of the heater, the quiet and staticky murmur of the radio, and her fingertips cool against my skin.
“So I looked up some stuff last night,” I said. “Big bang theory, God, near-death experiences, resurrection.”
“Some light reading, then.” She glanced over at me.
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. I hesitated, then added, “I keep trying to put all the pieces together, but I can’t make everything fit. Like, if there’s nothing after this life, if it’s just that blackness I saw”—it was still hard for me to say that aloud, even to Thera—“then what about Jesus coming back after dying? I mean, that’s the core belief in our religion. Did somebody just make it all up?”
“And?”
I shook my head. “There are some who say that it’s because everyone believed in magic then, not science, so they were fooled by whatever the resurrection ‘witnesses’ said. But then there are arguments that people back then were way more sophisticated than we give them credit for, and the first Christians died horribly for their beliefs, so they had to have seen something to convince them to suffer that way. Plus, apparently, if you were picking witnesses to convince everyone of a resurrection that didn’t happen, you wouldn’t have chosen women because no one respected them then. And—” I stopped, realizing I was talking faster and faster.
Thera grinned at me.
“It’s interesting,” I admitted. “Stuff I never thought about before.”
“Told you,” she said simply.
I lifted our joined hands and kissed the back of her wrist. “Are you sure you don’t want to pull over somewhere?” Something about her just made me thirsty—for her time, her thoughts, and yeah, okay, her body.
She laughed. “We’re so close now,” she said, tipping her head toward the windshield. “You want to tell me what I’m looking for?”
“There.” I pointed to the red roof of Dog ’N’ Suds, visible now on the left side of the road. There really wasn’t much to the structure—the small enclosed area where the food was prepared, and the long roof that extended over the spaces where people could park and order. A big cartoon dog—the offspring of Snoopy and Goofy, seemingly—adorned a matching red sign out front.
“Oh, it’s kind of cute,” she said in surprise as we drew closer. She let go of my hand to reclaim the steering wheel before she hit the turn signal.
“You were expecting . . .”
“I don’t know, something old and kind of falling down, I guess. But this is better,” she said, sounding intrigued as she made the turn into the parking lot.
“Just because they were popular in the fifties or whatever doesn’t mean they were all built then,” I pointed out.
“Fair enough,” she said.
“ ‘Oh ye of little faith,’ ” I added with a grin. It was one of the few Bible quotes I could remember, though given the old-timey language, I was pretty sure it was something my grandfather used to say all the time rather than something from one of my dad’s sermons.
“Ha,” Thera said drily. “Yeah. That’s me. So, what do I do?”
“Pull into one of the spaces with a menu board. Unless you’d rather order at the window and eat outside.” I pointed at the picnic benches that lined the edge of the parking area.
She looked at me, aghast. “It’s, like, thirty-five degrees outside!”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know if it was okay to eat in here. I’m pretty sure you must vacuum this car every day for it to be this clean.” I pretended to look around.
“It’s only every other day,” Thera said with a half smile. “Otherwise, the neighbors complain about the noise of the vacuum outside.”
I laughed, though I wasn’t sure if she was totally kidding. Considering one of her neighbors was Riverwoods, where some people were looking for any excuse to hate on Thera and her mother, I wouldn’t doubt it.
“All right, so now what?” she asked, pulling into an open space and putting the car in park. We were one of three cars under the roof. The cold had kept everyone else away apparently.
“We look at the menu and decide,” I said. “Then when we’re ready, we press the button to tell the waitress to come over.”
“A drive-through is more efficient,” Thera said, wrinkling her nose.
“It’s not about efficiency,” I protested. “It’s about atmosphere.”
Thera laughed. “Well, clearly. I mean, who wouldn’t go out of their way to eat in this car?”
“You wait, you’ll see.” Then I added, “And I’m pretty glad to be eating here.”
“Yeah?” She leaned a little closer to me.
“It’s not just the car, but the company,” I said, reaching out to brush my thumb across her cheek.
“Hmm. Maybe you’re onto something there,” she said, turning her face into my touch.
But when I moved in to kiss her, she pulled back. “Oh, no. We’re on a mission.”
I groaned.
With an amused sound, she turned to consult the menu. “All right, let’s check out our options. I’m guessing you’re going to recommend the chili dog and root beer?”
“Technically, it’s a Coney Dog, and yes, if your soul isn’t dead,” I responded immediately, and then winced at my choice of words. Nice, Jace. But for a second, I’d forgotten. About Eli, about everything.
Thera didn’t seem to notice. “How about my taste buds?” she asked with faux seriousness. “What if they’re in mortal peril?”
“Please tell me you’re not a vegan.”
“Nope, I’m just particular about my choices.” She glanced back at me with a smile, and her gaze caught mine and held.
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said softly, the blood thundering in my head already.
Thera shifted in her seat to face me, and this time, she leaned over and brushed her mouth over mine, warm and soft.
I touched my tongue to her lips, and they parted, welcoming me. She tasted of cinnamon gum, and I wanted more.
She wrapped her hands around the back of my neck to pull me closer. I sucked her lower lip into my mouth, running my tongue over the edge of it, and she made a soft sound that electrified me and made me want to pull her over the console into my lap.
The rap on her window made us both jump and jump apart, and my first thought was that the waitress had gotten annoyed with us taking so long to order or someone had complained about us kissing.
But when I looked out the window behind Thera, it wasn’t a shivering waitress in a red-and-yellow uniform shirt, but a familiar figure in a green-and-white letterman’s jacket. He was leaning with his hands braced on the roof of Thera’s car, his face looming at the edge of the window frame.
“Caleb,” I said in disbelief. His nose was a little puffy from the blow I’d landed at lunch.
Thera stiffened and threw a glance over her shoulder.
“What’s going on? What are you doing here?” I asked, loud enough for my words to carry through the glass.
Thera reached reluctantly for the window buttons.
“No, don’t,” I said to her. I didn’t want him to have any more access to her than he already had.
“Let’s go. Come on.” Even with the barrier between us, his harsh tone came through loud and clear. He rapped loudly on the window again, for no reason at all, beyond seeing Thera jolt.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Thera grimly, reaching behind me for the door handle. I didn’t want to take my eyes off him.
“This isn’t a good idea. We can leave,” Thera said. “Go somewhere else.” She sounded both tired and alarmed.
“No, we were here first.” This was my place, not his. Which brought another disturbing question to mind.
I got out of the car and slammed the door shut. “What the hell? Di
d you follow us?” I asked Caleb. I couldn’t imagine the odds of him just happening to end up here. I should have known he’d be pissed about what happened at lunch. “What is wrong with you?”
He came around the back end of the car to get in my face. “You’re choosing that over us?” he demanded, flinging a hand in Thera’s general direction.
Some of it was about Thera, but I bet it was also partly that I’d embarrassed him at lunch. Caleb could dish shit, but he couldn’t take it.
My temper flared, and I struggled to keep a handle on it. “I’m not on the team anymore, and she has nothing to do with you or them. Just forget it, okay?”
He gave a derisive laugh. “Dude, she’s got your dick so twisted in a knot you can’t see straight.”
“Shut up,” I snapped.
“She’s a tease, everyone knows that. And you’re a fucking idiot if you fall for it. She just wants the attention to—”
I lashed out, sending my fist flying toward his face. Unfortunately, it was my left, which meant the punch didn’t carry nearly the impact it would have before the accident and surgeries.
Caleb stumbled back for a second, surprised; then his face turned a deep shade of red, the veins in his forehead popping to prominence. “Oh, you are a punk-ass bitch.”
It spiraled quickly from there. He lunged forward and took me to the ground, and the adrenaline sang in my veins, so hitting the hard concrete of the parking pad didn’t even hurt.
But I felt his knuckles connect with my nose and the lightning zap of pain that made my head spin and the corresponding gush of hot blood.
That pissed me off. I shoved up, and we went over in the other direction, me on top of him, landing punches wherever I could.
That cycle repeated a couple more times, each of us taking the advantage of leverage and trying to use it to pound the crap out of the other.
Someone screamed, and glass crashed. A tray, most likely. A tiny, distant part of my brain mourned the loss of all that food and root beer.
“911! Call 911!” someone shouted.
“Stop! Get in the car now,” Thera said, yanking backward on the collar of my coat until I stumbled to my feet.