You Were Never Here

by Kathleen Peacock

  People in town say the place is haunted, and it’s not hard to see why. Between its peeling gray exterior and its peaked slate roof, it’s a sprawling shadow caught between the green yard and the river. By some trick of the light, the windows always look flat and black during the day—like the house has dozens of eyes that are constantly watching you.

  Inside, it’s filled with dark corners and hidden nooks and the smell of old leather and books. It creaks and groans at night, and you can hear the old pipes rattle in the walls at odd hours.

  Maybe some people would call it creepy—Riley used to say it made his spine itch—but it’s never really felt that way to me. To me, it just feels . . . right.

  It feels right and I’ve missed it.

  “Hello,” I whisper.

  The house doesn’t whisper back, but I imagine there’s some tiny, imperceptible shift. The shaking of a shutter in the breeze or the shifting of a shadow as I follow Aunt Jet up the porch steps.

  She pauses and turns, one hand on the doorknob as she examines me with a small, worried frown. “You didn’t pack much,” she says, nodding toward my bag.

  She’s not wrong. The duffel bag is big, but it’s not that big. A week’s worth of clothes, plus a couple of extra T-shirts. A mostly blank notebook, a charger for the ancient iPod I was allowed to bring, and Pengy—an uninventively named stuffed penguin that I definitely don’t need but felt wrong leaving behind.

  Until Dad actually put me on the bus, I was sure he was bluffing, so I hadn’t exactly put a lot of effort into packing. Not that I want to get into that with Aunt Jet. As far as I know, Dad’s given her only the CliffsNotes version of what happened back in New York—just enough to explain why I’m not allowed my cell phone or laptop or to call Lacey, probably—and that’s fine with me. The less Aunt Jet knows, the less she’ll prod me to talk about it. “The backpack is pretty full, too.”

  She doesn’t look convinced, but she lets it drop.

  Just before following Jet inside, I glance at the house next door. A tall hedge borders the property, obscuring everything but the top two floors. Despite all the time that’s passed, my eyes go straight to the second floor, to the second window on the left.

  Riley’s window.

  Aunt Jet is wrong: Montgomery House has changed in what feels like a hundred different ways. Some changes—like how the shelves in the cupboards and fridge are all labeled with people’s names or how the formal parlor has been transformed into a common area with a TV and mismatched sofas—would be impossible to miss; others—like the absence of a particular antique or painting—are so small that I find myself questioning my memory.

  Despite all the changes, my room is still the same. Even though I’ve never lived in Montgomery House for more than a few months over various summers, the third bedroom on the second floor has always been mine. When Aunt Jet renovated, she left this room exactly as it was.

  “You haven’t changed, either,” I murmur as Brisby—fat and fickle as ever—follows me inside. He nips my ankle and then promptly claims the bed.

  Being in here is like being in a time warp. The bookcase is crammed full of paperbacks about magic boarding schools and faeries and little orphan girls with hair every bit as red as my own, the bedspread is the kind of pink floral monstrosity I loved when I was twelve, and my dad’s antique typewriter—an old Olympia he dragged down from the attic as a teen—is still on the desk.

  A mobile of the solar system hangs from the ceiling. Riley and I made it from a kit. We both wanted it, but he insisted I take it home.

  He was always like that. Kind. Until the day he wasn’t.

  Brisby hops down and darts under the bed just as the door opens. I turn, expecting Jet, but a strange guy stands on the threshold.

  Correction: a gorgeous strange guy stands on the threshold.

  “Sorry,” he says, “I didn’t realize anyone was here.” There’s a soft edge to his words. An accent I can’t quite place. “So, are you in need of medical supplies, or are you just into Swedish folk music?”

  “Huh?” It takes me a second to realize he’s talking about my shirt. I can count on one hand the number of people I know who have heard of First Aid Kit, let alone who know what country they’re from.

  He glances at the bags on the floor and then back at me. He’s so tall that I have to look up to meet his gray gaze. “You must be the niece. Mary Catherine, right?”

  He lifts his hand. For a horrible second, I think he expects me to shake it, but he just smiles and runs it through his sandy-colored hair.

  “Cat,” I correct. “Only my dad and aunt call me Mary Catherine.”

  “Cat.” He says my name slowly, rolling it over his tongue like it’s a flavor he’s trying out. “I’m Aidan. Aidan Porter.” He nods toward the desk. “I was wondering if I could borrow that.”

  I glance over my shoulder and then back at him. “The typewriter?”

  “The typewriter.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Other than it’s not the 1970s, I don’t actually have a counterargument. Besides, it’s not like I’m planning on using the thing. I walk to the desk and lift the Olympia. It’s heavier than it looks, and I stumble as I turn back to him.

  “Whoa.” He takes two long strides into the room and lifts the typewriter from my shaking arms before I drop it. As he does, I notice that his feet are bare. He has nice toes, I think, which is a ridiculous thing to notice.

  “Thanks.” I feel a blush creep over my cheeks and down my neck. Unlike me, Aidan has no problem holding the typewriter, even though the thing must weigh forty pounds.

  He turns and heads for the door, then pauses and glances back. “I don’t suppose I can borrow paper, too?” He raises one eyebrow in a manner that’s either charming or arrogant—I have a feeling I would have to know him better to figure out where the two diverge or overlap—and then turns and walks down the hall, just trusting that I’ll follow.

  Telling myself I’m only trailing after him because I don’t have anything better to do, I grab a stack of paper from the top desk drawer and then follow him to a room at the very back of the house. It’s the room my dad always wrote in whenever we came to visit because it has the best view of the river.

  The last time I was in this room, it was filled with sturdy antiques. Now it’s host to the kind of cheap white furniture that you buy in boxes and assemble at home. There’s a sleek flat-screen in the corner, but underneath it sits a huge, hulking machine and a stack of those big black tapes people used before DVD and Blu-ray. VHS tapes. I may have a room full of vinyl back home, but even my love of vintage has its limits.

  Aidan sets the typewriter down next to a laptop while I hover a few steps over the threshold, clutching the paper, unsure what to do. “You know you need more than just paper, right? It takes these things called ribbons.” Even though my father does most of his work on his computer, he picked up an old typewriter last year. He occasionally drags it out to the dining room table, where he’ll use it for a day or two until he remembers how much he likes the ability to copy and paste.

  Aidan opens one of the desk drawers and pulls out a typewriter ribbon, still in its original packaging. “Google is a marvelous thing.”

  “Truly boundless,” I concur.

  “You can find out anything. For instance, did you know this house has a Wikipedia entry?”

  “I did not know that.” I try to keep my voice level, but inside, I’m wondering just what Aidan would find if he googled me right now.

  Oblivious to my sudden discomfort, he says, “I looked up the house before I moved in. Figured anything this old might have an entry. There’s a photo of your father on the porch. I think it’s from one of his books.”

  “The picture of him in the horrible tweed jacket with the elbow patches?”

  Aidan nods.

  “He loves that photo.” Personally, I’ve always thought it makes him look like a pretentious ass—which might not be that far off
the mark. I love my father, but there are times when it feels like he’s trying to hit every Serious Male Author stereotype in the book.

  Aidan turns and leans against the wall. “I heard he’s some kind of big-shot screenwriter.”

  I shrug. “I guess.” My dad’s done well—really well by Montgomery Falls standards—but of my parents, my mom is the famous one. The one who gets spreads in Variety. The kind of screenwriter whose name gets mentioned almost as much as directors’. Dad almost never talks about her. Not unless he has to. I usually see her once or twice a year. She takes me out for dinner sometimes, when she’s in town for meetings. She’s tall and thin and elegant and very, very cold. It’s always weird and uncomfortable. I always feel like she’s staring at me, like she’s trying to figure out if some mistake had been made at the hospital.

  “I found some of your father’s old drafts down in the study. Pretty cool stuff.”

  “You’re a writer?”

  Aidan laughs. “Nah. I just read everything.” His hair falls across his forehead, and he brushes it back distractedly. “I kind of admire it, though. The way writers get to create worlds and people. The way they can manipulate reality. It must be like playing God.”

  I shake my head. “My dad’s ego is big, but I don’t think it’s that big.” Then, because I really don’t want to talk about my father, I say, “You go to the university?”

  “Riverview High.”

  My gaze slides to the laptop and then over to the Olympia. “And you’re cheating on your laptop with an ancient typewriter because . . . ?”

  “Don’t you ever just find old things interesting?” He presses one of the keys three times. Rat-tat-tat. “Tell me that sound isn’t cool. Besides, I flunked English and have to take classes over the summer.” He flashes a self-deprecating grin that somehow manages to do the exact opposite of self-deprecate. “Turns out that in order to pass a class, they expect you to actually show up. Figured typing my papers on this would make things a little more interesting. Or at least atmospheric.”

  Feeling slightly more comfortable, I step farther into the room, far enough to set the stack of paper down on top of a threadbare ottoman that had to have been rescued from the depths of the house. An expensive-looking camera bag sits on the floor next to it.

  “So, you’re still in high school but you live here?” Normally, I wouldn’t ask what feels like a very personal question of someone I’ve known for all of five minutes, but we are virtually living together.

  A low laugh slips out of his throat. It’s a good laugh. It’s the kind of laugh that wraps itself around you and makes your pulse jump and skip. Pretty boys should not be able to laugh like that. There should be a limit on the number of advantages one person has. “I’m an army brat,” he says. “Dad got transferred to the base outside town last summer, but after seven months, they moved him again. I didn’t want to go, so I stayed here. I’m a year older than everyone else because my family moved so much when I was a kid. Since I’m eighteen, it’s not like there’s some big issue with me being on my own.”

  “What about your mom?”

  An expression I can’t read passes over his face. “Where he goes, she goes.”

  “My mother’s in California,” I say.

  “Do you see her much?”

  “No.” I hardly ever talk about my mom—even to Lacey, who is slightly obsessed with all of my mother’s movies—and I’m not sure what compelled me to open up to a guy I’ve just met. Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like to get left behind when you don’t fit into someone else’s plan. Even with Dad, a lot of the time it feels like I’m something he grudgingly works around—like I’m on his list of priorities, but maybe only third or fourth down. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

  Aidan shrugs. “Honestly, I seem to get along with them a lot better when they’re on the other side of the ocean. Besides, this place isn’t so bad. And at least now there’ll be someone my own age around for the summer. Back in May, when your aunt told me you’d be spending a few months here . . .”

  The surprise must show on my face because he trails off midsentence. I swallow. “My aunt told you about me coming in May?”

  He shrugs. “Around then. End of April or the start of May.”

  So at least six weeks.

  Dad had acted like sending me here had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, like some last straw had finally split in two, but he’d been planning to off-load me on Jet for months. And Jet? Back in the car, she hadn’t bothered correcting me when I said she’d known I was coming for two weeks.

  Logically, it doesn’t change anything—I’m still here for the same amount of time regardless of when they told me—but my chest still feels tight with anger. “I’d better go,” I say awkwardly, taking a step back. “Stuff to unpack.”

  Aidan crosses the room before I can turn away. “Hey,” he says, leaning toward me and putting a hand on the doorframe. “I don’t know if I said something wrong, but if I did, I’m sorry.”

  There’s enough room for me to squeeze past him, but only barely. Even being careful, there would be only inches between our skin, and after what happened on the bus, I’m not exactly feeling adventurous.

  His brows pull together, a small crease forming between them. “Seriously, you look upset. If I did or said anything . . .”

  “It’s not you. You didn’t say or do anything wrong.” Aidan continues to stare, that tiny line still there. “It’s really not you,” I say, overcompensating and overemphasizing.

  The crease disappears like it never existed. “A bunch of my friends are watching a movie tomorrow night. Calling it a ‘party’ probably makes it sound a lot more interesting than it is, but why don’t you come?”

  “You’re asking me to hang out with you and your friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “So much suspicion in one so young.” He presses a hand to his chest like I’ve mortally wounded him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “No . . . It’s just . . .” I have friends back in New York. Or at least I did. Depending on who you asked, my proximity to Lacey even makes—made—me somewhat popular. But there’s no Lacey here to make me look good. I’m exhausted, I smell like I’ve been on a bus forever, and thanks to the unexpected bombshell that Dad and Jet had my arrival planned for ages, I probably seem like Mood-Swing Girl. “You don’t know me,” I say, settling on the least embarrassing and/or revelatory answer I can think of.

  “So, you’ll come hang out with us and I’ll get to know you. Besides, we’re essentially going to be living together. Chances are I’ll go downstairs to get a glass of milk some night and forget to wear pants. I’d like the chance to win you over before the sight of me in Transformers boxer shorts turns you off completely.”

  It almost sounds like he’s flirting, but I’m not the girl guys flirt with. Not often, anyway. Not with Lacey around. And, honestly, it’s probably better that way. But Lacey isn’t here, and Aidan is staring at me, waiting for me to respond. “They make Transformers boxers?”

  “Probably not,” he admits, one corner of his mouth quirking up and the other following in an uneven grin as he steps back, “but think of all the insecure guys it would give hope to.”

  I want to say something witty and biting, but instead, I just shake my head and turn away.

  As I retreat down the hall, I think insecurity is not a problem a guy like Aidan Porter has ever needed help with.

  Four

  I WAS SUPPOSED TO CALL DAD WHEN I GOT TO MONTGOMERY Falls—“So I know you got in safely,” he’d said as he practically pushed me onto the bus—but I don’t trust myself to talk to him without yelling, and all yelling will do is convince him that he was right to keep things from me as long as he had.

  I can’t even take my anger to Jet because, as it turns out, Montgomery House being home to a bunch of strangers translates to a distinct lack of privacy.

  Each time I try to talk to her—in the kitchen or the stu
dy or even coming out of the bathroom—someone else wanders past. A nursing student on her way downstairs with a basket of laundry. The man who’s staying at Montgomery House until his divorce goes through. Aidan with his pale eyes and his sandy hair and his crooked smile.

  Eventually, I give up. I slide into bed, but despite how tired I am, I spend hours staring at the ceiling, watching the shadowy shape of that Styrofoam solar system as it spins in the breeze from the open window. Thoughts loop through my head on repeat. Dad. Jet. Lacey.

  Riley.

  Riley, who I’ve tried so hard not to think about over the past few years.

  It feels like I drift off for only a moment or two, but when I open my eyes, the room is filled with sunlight, and the alarm clock on the nightstand says it’s almost noon.

  The last time I slept this late, I’d had food poisoning. Dad had been in California for a meeting, and I had been staying at Lacey’s.

  I always stay with the Chapmans when Dad is away. Stayed, I guess, given that the days of sleepovers are pretty much over.

  Lacey’s apartment is loud and chaotic and filled with warmth. There are boisterous family dinners where her parents—both professors—dance circles around each other as they debate everything from deforestation to pop stars to how to harness reality television as a potential agent of change. There are movie marathons and cooking lessons and epic board game nights—things Lacey takes for granted because she can have them anytime she wants.

  It’s so different from my own home, where Dad and I maybe eat together two or three times a week before he shuts himself up in his study to work.

  The night I had gotten food poisoning, Gwen, Lacey’s mom, had stayed up with me for hours as I heaved my guts out.

  I didn’t just lose Lacey when our friendship unraveled. I lost her parents, too.

  I push myself to my feet and haul wrinkled clothes from my duffel bag. There’s no point in thinking about Lacey or her mom or how I’m pretty sure I miss their apartment way more than I miss my own. Once things break, you can’t just put them back together. The cracks are always there. You can’t go back.