This Is Home

by Lisa Duffy

  I shrugged. “Just out.”

  She studied me. “It’s him, isn’t it? That guy in the truck.”

  “What?” I asked, but I could tell my face had already given me away. “We’re just friends. He’s Flynn’s brother.”

  “Friends, my ass. Not with that look on your face. How old is he anyway?”

  “Twenty,” I lied, subtracting a year. “Only three years older.”

  “Are you math challenged suddenly?”

  “I’m seventeen soon.”

  “In six months!”

  “Five months. As of yesterday.”

  “Keep this up, and I’ll make Lucy give you the sex talk again.”

  “Please—the first five times were enough. Come on, Desiree. When have I ever asked you for anything?”

  She sighed, held out the keys. “Well, do yourself a favor at least. Wipe that look off your face. Don’t look so goddamn eager.”

  I pull down the visor now and look in the mirror, flip it back up, feeling ridiculous for listening to Desiree in the first place.

  There are a handful of cars parked on the street. I get out and walk to the back of the house. There’s a light on in Jimmy’s bedroom, and I climb the steps quietly. Suddenly he’s in front of me, stepping out of the shadows of the landing.

  He’s in sweatpants and a wrinkled T-shirt. The window to his bedroom is open. Inside, a sheet is tangled on the mattress. There’s a book on the pillow, a small lamp on the bedside table lighting the room.

  “Did I get you out of bed? I can go . . .” I pause, stand at the top of the stairs.

  “I was just reading. There are a bunch of guys hanging out in the house, and there’s less temptation in here.” He points at the chairs in the corner. “Want to sit?”

  I walk past the window, trying not to stare at the mattress where he was just lying down. He sits in the chair across from me, and we’re quiet before he clears his throat, glances at me.

  “I had fun today . . .” he says, and pauses, a look on his face as though there’s something more. “This might not come out right, but . . . do you think it’s . . . I don’t know . . . weird that I’m hanging out with you? You know, since you’re still in high school.”

  I pause, not sure what to say. “You want me to agree that it’s weird you’re hanging out with me?” I ask finally.

  He smiles, shakes his head.

  “Flynn kind of lit into me a little while ago. Told me to stay away from you. He thinks I’m, you know . . .” He pauses again.

  “He thinks you’re what?”

  He blows out a breath. “Going to fuck it up, I guess. Do something to let you down or hurt your feelings—he had a whole list of shitty things I’ve done. We’ll be here all night if I tell you every one of them.”

  “Well, that’s between you and Flynn. I don’t have a list.”

  He nods, agreeing with me, but his face is clouded. “I appreciate that—I do. But I have to come clean about a couple of things. Then you can decide. Okay?”

  I look at him and wait.

  “What I said before . . . when you first got here . . . about temptation . . .” He lifts his chin to his bedroom, his eyes on the door to the living room. “I had a drug problem—have a drug problem. I’m sober now. Part of me thought I could come back, hang out with my buddies like before. Just clean.” He clears this throat. “But I can’t. So—I’ve been here—sort of holed up in this room. Keeping to myself until I ship out. And then you showed up . . . and, I don’t know, you don’t act your age,” he says. “I didn’t really think about you being in high school until Flynn lost it on me. He said it was creepy.”

  “Flynn’s last girlfriend was twenty-one. The one before that had a kid, I think.” I laugh, but he doesn’t smile.

  “He’s just trying to protect you.”

  “I didn’t ask for his help.”

  “I know that—believe me—I’m not saying that you’re helpless in any way. It’s just . . . I was messed up for a lot of years, and he remembers it. I didn’t exactly make the house an easy place to live when he was younger. But what he said got me thinking—he kept saying, why her? Meaning, why you.” He points to me. “And, well—there’s something you don’t know. And the more I think about it, the more I’m wondering if it’s why I feel this . . . connection or just, you know, something with you.”

  He breathes in again, lets it out slowly. He looks at his hands, stops talking for so long I wonder if he’s changed his mind about telling me whatever he thinks he needs to tell me, but he clears his throat, continues.

  “I was in a really bad car accident a few years ago. The truck flipped over, rolled a couple of times. My buddy was driving. He ended up through the windshield. I got thrown out of the passenger seat, and somehow the truck turned upside down and I landed underneath it. The door was holding it up. Just that thin piece of glass and metal holding up the whole fucking truck. I remember opening my eyes, seeing that door wobble, and thinking I’m going to die. No way I’m not dead.”

  He sits forward in his seat, his hands clasped in front of him. There’s a scar on his right leg, raised and angry, and I reach out and touch it. He glances at me, slips his fingers underneath mine, touching the top of my hand with his thumb.

  “I’m calling for my buddy, but he’s not answering. I didn’t know it then, but he was already . . . He didn’t make it. Then I see headlights and a car pulls over. But there’s no way for anyone to get to me. I mean, there’s like an inch between me and this truck, and you can hear the thing wobbling, this eek, eek, eek, back and forth. But I hear this guy’s voice, and I’ll never forget it because it was calm. Like we’re having a beer at some bar. He’s telling me he’s going to get me out, and I don’t answer because he’s not. I mean, he’s not going to be able to get me out—I can’t move at all, and he’d have to be fucking insane to crawl under this truck to get me.” He moves his hand away from mine, presses his hands together, puts them to his lips.

  “But he does. He crawls right under the truck, his face next to me, and says in the calmest fucking voice—How about we get out of here? And then he drags me out from under the truck, and we’re not even two, three feet away from it, and it just crashes down, the door flying off and the loudest noise.” He stops, looks at me. “I found out later he was an off-duty cop. Just trying to get home to his family.”

  The expression on his face makes me sit up straighter.

  “He was trying to get home to you,” he says.

  I see his lips move, hear the words come out of his mouth, but they float through the air, swirling around my head.

  “It was Bent?” I ask finally, and he nods.

  “He came to the hospital a couple of days later. He told me he was kind of a punk when he was younger. Struggled with authority. Got into some trouble. Things turned around when he joined the service.” He shrugs. “I listened. Did the same. But I never got to tell him. He only knows me as some drunk asshole who almost got him killed.”

  “That makes sense now.” I don’t mean to say this out loud, but it slips out. Jimmy looks at me.

  “He’s always had this thing with Flynn,” I explain. “Like, he doesn’t like him. I never understood why. Turns out it’s not him he doesn’t like. It’s you.”

  “That’s why I wanted you to know. He might not be cool with us hanging out. I can talk to him. Maybe being in the army will help. That and I’m sober. You know, not such a loser anymore.”

  Something clicks when he says army, and I reach into my back pocket.

  “I keep meaning to ask you if you know this guy?” I ask, holding out the picture. “I think I saw him here the other night.”

  He takes it and holds it up, catching the light from his bedroom.

  “I’m assuming you don’t mean your father,” he says, and squints at it. “You saw this guy here?” He points to Quinn’s husband.

  I nod. “In the kitchen when I was looking for Flynn.”

  “There are guys crashing here a
ll the time. I’ll ask around. Someone might know him. Can I hold on to this?” He holds up the picture.

  “Yeah—just don’t lose it. It belongs to his wife. She moved in downstairs from me, and she’s . . . nice. Her husband took off, and Bent won’t answer any of my questions. I guess they served together—he just keeps saying he’s looking out for him—whatever that means.”

  Jimmy’s phone lights up on the table in front of us, and Flynn’s name flashes on the screen. He answers it and talks in a clipped voice before he hangs up.

  “He’s coming over,” he says. “I stopped by the house earlier when he wasn’t home. Found some pills in his room. Codeine or some shit. I dumped them down the drain. I don’t want you to leave, but it’s probably better if you’re not here.”

  We say goodbye, and I hurry down the stairs, anxious to leave before Flynn shows up. The street is empty, and I get in Desiree’s car, start the engine, and drive away from the house.

  I take the long way home, thinking about Flynn and the empty bottle of pills. And Jimmy, lying under a truck. And Bent, pulling him out from under it.

  When I turn into the driveway, I’m surprised that Bent’s truck is parked in front of me—it’s not even nine o’clock.

  My phone rings, and Jimmy’s name appears on the screen.

  “That was fast,” I say. “What happened with Flynn?”

  “He hasn’t shown up yet. But I showed the picture to my roommate. Ronnie said the guy’s an army friend of a friend. Doesn’t know him other than he needed a place to crash. Said he had to patch things up with his wife and took off. He said his name’s Luke. I didn’t get a last name.”

  We hang up, and I walk around to the stairs. The house is dark, only the porch light on.

  Upstairs, when I flick the light on, Rooster picks his head up off the couch, blinks at me.

  Bent’s bedroom door is open, his bed made and the light off. I walk through the house to the back, flipping on lights, and look out the window to the backyard, thinking maybe Bent and Quinn are sitting by the fire pit, but the backyard is empty.

  In the hallway, the front door is still open, and Rooster unfolds himself lazily from the couch.

  “Where is he, Rooster?” I ask, petting his head, and he wags his tail, licks my shin. I walk to Bent’s bedroom door, look at my cell phone, and press his name.

  It rings, once, then twice, and I hold it away from my ear, hearing it echo back at me from somewhere in the house.

  It rings again, this time loud, from Quinn’s apartment below.

  I don’t move. I want to close the door, go to my bedroom, pretend I didn’t just hear my father’s phone ringing right below my feet, where Quinn’s bedroom is, the house dark and silent with just the two of them.

  I see the way Bent looks at Quinn.

  At first, I thought it was just a crush. But lately, it’s something more. I noticed it in the truck tonight when we were driving to Sully’s. From the back seat, I saw Quinn close her eyes, tilt her chin up, the wind from her open window blowing her long hair off her neck. Bent glanced over at her, and his eyes stayed on her for such a long time I almost nudged the back of his seat with my toe to get him paying attention to the road again, but we stopped at a light and he snapped out of it.

  He caught my eye in the rearview mirror, though, and his cheeks colored, telling me everything I needed to know about his feelings for Quinn.

  Rooster stands up suddenly and cocks his head; a minute later, a car door shuts somewhere on the street out front.

  Rooster lurches out the door and runs down the stairs. I follow him, watch as he pushes the screen door open with his head and disappears onto the porch.

  I’m on the second-to-last step when Quinn’s front door opens and my father appears.

  “Libby,” he says breathlessly.

  He runs a hand through his hair, puts a hand in his pocket casually, as though we’ve just happened to run into each other in the foyer.

  “Your shoes are untied,” I say, pointing to his boots, the laces loose, as if he’s just pulled them on.

  Before he can answer, a man steps through the doorway into the foyer. He looks up at me, and over at my father, his eyes moving down to Bent’s untied boots and back up again.

  “Luke,” Bent says.

  Quinn steps out from behind my father, her eyes wide. “John,” she whispers.

  But she’s not looking at him. She’s looking at me, her eyes not leaving my face, as though we’re the only two people in the room.

   18

  Quinn

  Quinn didn’t know if she’d ever see John’s face again. She hadn’t imagined their reunion. Hadn’t even really processed that he’d left her for this long, without even a phone call. A text, perhaps, to say, I’m okay. Don’t worry.

  Yet here he is. Upright with all limbs and toes and fingers accounted for. Standing in her foyer. Her foyer. Steps away from her with his keys in his hand as though he’s just returned home from a short errand to get cigarettes or ice cream or milk instead of disappearing from her life for months.

  But Quinn only looks at Libby, wanting . . . no needing . . . to explain. As soon as the thought enters her mind, she grasps the difficulty in that—how to explain something she doesn’t understand.

  Instead, she crosses her arms in front of her body, stays in the doorway, half shielded behind Bent.

  They’re all silent for a moment. Bent’s shirt is untucked in the back, his shoelaces undone, but he’s dressed. She fingers the seam on the side of her dress, relieved it’s not inside out.

  “Good to see you, man,” Bent says finally. Politely. Absurdly, Quinn thinks, and she moves out of the doorway now, a surge of adrenaline rushing through her body.

  John has on the same clothes he was wearing the night he left; he doesn’t look any different to her. It’s as if he stormed out of their duplex that night, crossed the street, and strolled into this house, the past two months nonexistent.

  John’s quiet, looking at them with a blank expression, and Quinn finds it enraging.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks, and he looks at her.

  “What am I doing here?” he repeats.

  The simple delivery of that sentence, the way he releases it into the air so nonchalantly, so easily, makes the tiny hairs on her arms prickle.

  The space between them is suddenly too small—she doesn’t want him this close to her—it seems wrong that he’s this close to her after vanishing like that.

  “Yes, John,” she says, in a tone she uses with the twins—with children. “You haven’t called. Haven’t answered your phone. You’ve been gone . . . for months. And now, you’re here? Just like that? How did you even know where to find me?”

  “I called. Earlier.” He looks at Bent.

  The floor under Quinn’s feet shifts, the air suddenly thinner, difficult to pull into her lungs.

  She blinks, dumbfounded.

  “You called him,” she says, and turns to Bent. “He called you?”

  Bent glances at her, then at John. “I called you back, but you didn’t answer. Guess you got the message, though.”

  “You called him back!” Quinn shouts.

  Bent flinches at her voice and draws back from her, moves deeper into the foyer, out of her doorway and away from her.

  “I tried to tell you in the parking lot—”

  “Quinn—don’t be mad at Bent,” John interrupts. “I asked him to not say anything. I wanted to see you . . . you know . . . face-to-face.”

  “I should go. Leave you two alone,” Bent says softly, and walks to the stairs. “Libby, let’s go.”

  John takes a step, as if he’s coming into Quinn’s apartment, but she blocks the doorway with her body, her fury rising to the surface now. Her body shaking with it.

  “So . . . John—what did you say to Bent? I’d like to know what you needed to say—what was so important to say to your brother before your wife!”

  “Quinn—”

 
; “Tell me what he said.” She grabs Bent’s sleeve. “What were you not supposed to tell me? Don’t look at him—look at me. I’m asking you. Me.”

  Bent swallows, blinks. “He just said that he was coming home. That was it. That was all.”

  “Home? So, this is home now?” She laughs, but it’s a strangled, deranged sound, and Bent puts an arm out between her and John, as though she might be suddenly dangerous.

  “And don’t tell Quinn? Is that what you said, John? Luke?” Quinn whips around, and John flinches, trips back against the door frame. “But wait, I can’t call you that, can I? Only people in your other life can call you Luke. I’m not one of your war buddies—not one of your brothers.”

  “Quinn . . . just . . . let me explain—” John stammers, but Quinn holds up her hand.

  “No. Go with Bent—it’s his house, after all. But don’t come here again. Not to my door. You don’t live here.” She points a finger at John, and Bent steps between them.

  “All right. Let’s calm down. John, go upstairs. Libby, take John upstairs please. I just want a minute with Quinn.”

  Libby hesitates, looking at Quinn, as though she’s not sure what to do.

  “I’d like to talk to you. Can you come in. Please?” Quinn asks Libby.

  She feels Bent’s eyes on her, drilling a hole into her, but she won’t look at him, can’t look at him.

  “Come upstairs when you’re done,” Bent tells Libby as she walks past him into Quinn’s apartment.

  “Okay, Dad,” Libby sneers, and Bent rubs his forehead, closes his eyes.

  Quinn shuts the door slowly. Bent and John disappear from her view, just their shadows visible on the wall before the lock clicks shut.

  In the living room, Libby stands with her arms crossed, staring at the floor.

  Quinn pauses before she speaks. She considers an excuse, but it seems an insult to Libby—she saw the look on Libby’s face in the stairwell.

  They hadn’t even heard Libby come home. That was the truth of it.

  Bent had been moving on top of her, her legs wrapped around him, and maybe five minutes had passed or maybe an hour.

  All she knew was she didn’t want it to end—the way he felt inside of her; the taste of his lips on her mouth; the weight of him on top of her—and then his phone rang, and the floor creaked above them.