There’s too much perfume in the air. Warm wax that smells like “seaside” and “pumpkin patch” and “vanilla dreams” competes with musk and ancient spices and patchouli. It’s a nightmare herb garden, and I want to vomit.
The bathroom door is warped. It takes two hard shoulder-checks to get it to close all the way.
Here it smells like bleach and some vague, blue antiseptic. I press a hand against the wall above the toilet.
Just do it, I tell my stomach. In reply, my stomach roils but retracts. Shrinking to a hard stone in my belly, it becomes a weight. My body doesn’t obey, and I wonder, does anyone’s?
Why can’t it just turn itself inside out? If I could scrape the insides clean, put myself back together, maybe it would be all right.
Instead, I hover over a chipped toilet, trying to make my throat sour. Wishing for that tang to goad my guts, but nothing. Instead, I stand there, hot face, cold skin, and just feel sick.
All at once, my throat tightens and my nose stuffs up. I cry, suddenly and ug-ily. A teenage tragedy mask.
My lips twist; a quiver ripples through my chin. Each sob drags a hook through my chest. It catches under my breastbone and yanks, again and again.
I am so screwed up.
Maybe too screwed up.
Too broken for friends, too broken to fall in love, too broken to live in this stupid, screwed-up world. I want to sit and sob, but I’m not so broken that I’m willing to put my butt on a public bathroom floor. It’s stupid how things like that persist. How reality seeps into emotionality.
Sure, yes, definitely, have a nervous breakdown, but ugh, don’t do it on community tile.
That thought thins the tears. I shove off the wall. Dropping my bag onto my feet, I drape my coat over my arm so neither one touches the dirty floor and then I turn on the sink. The water runs clear and cold. Scooping a handful to my mouth, I drink and wash away the taste of nothing. I cut through the slime just under my nose; I scrub off the tears and erase their tracks.
This, I tell myself, is over.
This lunatic fugue state ends here. Wash up. Straighten up. Meet Hailey at the gym. Watch her defy physics with her lean, strong body, then hold her hand over the console in her car.
Go home by ten. Have that talk with Mom. Fix it up. Tie it all up with a ribbon. Yes. And hey, maybe I’ll even reach out to Syd. Not to say sorry, because this time she has to apologize. But just to see—
And no more Jane, because there is no more Jane. Same for 1LostMarble, because he’s Nick now. Nick, who’s going to help me take care of his friend. All is well, and all is as it should be.
And why do I believe him? I believe him, I think, because I have to. It puts an axis through the middle of the globe. It keeps me from spinning even more wildly out of orbit. It’s reasonable, rational
(I’m desperate)
and that’s how this ends. We’ll take care of Jane, and then I’ll walk back into my life like I never stepped out of it. I’ll rearrange the boxes more carefully. He’ll go in one; Jane goes in another—
Not Jane.
Lark.
The L sits on the tip of my tongue, a little acid, a little bitter. The steady beat of my brains against my skull makes it hard to concentrate. It also makes it easy to say nothing out loud. Just like I let her body hide in the woods, I can let her name hide in my heart.
Until I speak it. Until I give her up.
But not yet.
Once upon a time, there was an Egyptian pharaoh named Hatshepsut, who shared the crown with her seriously ticked-off half brother Thutmose. He wanted to be all the pharaoh, but she was older, wiser, people liked her—
And when she died before him, he sent people out across all of Egypt to chip her legacy off every single wall and statue and column they could find, leaving sandstone wraiths where once had been her name.
If no one remembers you, they thought, then you are annihilated.
But that’s thousands of years ago (and obviously, Thutmose missed a couple of inscriptions).
The girl in the woods—there are people who know her name. She’s only been dead a few days, and she had lots of friends. Online and off, all around—she’s dead, but she’ll live on a little longer. She left early; people remain. They don’t even realize they know her in the past tense, yet.
Some of them remember her third-grade picture, with giant front teeth and slightly crossed eyes. Maybe some of them remember the Rose Tico costume she wore to Halloween last year. Some know her by her digital traces; some, by her flesh.
But the flesh is faltering. Snow melting. Earth warming. Worms worming.
And the truth . . . the truth is everyone is dead for much longer than they’re alive. So the people who remember her name now might go on, for decades, whole collections of them.
But one by one, they’ll go dark—stars in the night sky, dying. One by one, the people who can say they knew her will sink into earth themselves. One day, they’ll be forgotten too.
It’s almost like our natural state is death.
Life is a deviation, the briefest of intermissions, before we return to the dark.
“IS EVERYTHING OKAY?” HAILEY ASKS AS SHE PULLS into the gas station.
The Admiral is closed at this hour, and it’s the last stop before we hit the Canadian border.
It’s an old service station. The pumps don’t have digital numbers on them, just black and white dials—the kind that slowly spin to the correct amount. Orangey overhead lights dirty the snow, casting green and sickly shadows.
Even Hailey looks off in this light, especially when she turns to me and waits for an answer.
We’ve flown so far tonight, and I thought it was all good. Quiet and safe, a brand-new beginning. As we coasted dark hills and blind descents, I let Hailey keep her hand. Instead, I caressed her ear and the curve of her neck; I smoothed over the round of her shoulder and flitted my touch against her knee. I felt so brave, all flavors of bold, and I still feel that way in spite of her question.
“Yeah,” I say, certain this is true. “Everything’s great. Why?”
Scooping a hand beneath mine, Hailey holds me in place. “You seem distracted.”
Do I? Am I? It’s been a long, weird day. It’s been the beginning and end of time, all closed up in this day. But this, now, is good. I packed my boxes tight before I got in her car again.
Alone with her, miles and miles away from our real lives, this is paradise. The clouds burned off before sunset; the moon is so fat and bright, it looks like a lie.
If we weren’t parked in this god-awful gas station, we could make out all the stars. Make out under the Milky Way; let the galaxy turn and turn behind us, infinity small and cold next to the heat we make.
But if Hailey notices something, one of those boxes came open, obviously. My insides need no poking, no prodding. My brains spit out excuses like ticker tape, long threads of it doubling back in case some explanation isn’t enough.
“Syd’s still being weird,” I say.
Hailey rubs her lips together. Her gaze skims across my face; it flickers from brows to lips, lingering. She’s weighted with import and thought; she rubs the back of my gloved hand with her thumb. When she lifts her head, I feel her focus change. It climbs the silver ladder of the scar, right up to my eye. “Can I ask you something?”
Oh god. There it is.
I don’t mean to sigh, but I do. I haven’t been waiting for her to ask about the scar, exactly, but I’m not shocked that she finally is. What’s weird is that I don’t want to tell her.
Because everybody already knows.
My Girl Scout troop, their parents, the newspaper, the local TV station, probably everybody I went to grade school with, most of middle school. Not all of high school because we got fed into the place out of a couple small towns when some district lines changed.
But Hailey’s from Walker’s Corner, just like I am.
She already knows. She has to. She didn’t just grow up in a random cop’s
house; she grew up with Matthew Cho. Who was there. Who knows. Who kept her working a desk at the police station until just this summer probably because of the knowing. But she’s gonna ask anyway, and I hate it. There should be better thoughts in Hailey’s head, sweeter dreams, no nightmares. No poison.
Before I get a chance to say any of that, Hailey goes on. “Like, were you and Syd a thing?”
“I—What?”
The cackle that escapes me sounds unhinged. Not what I expected her to ask, obviously. Not a thought I ever expected in my head. I’m so stupidly, giddily relieved that I fall back against my seat.
Hailey looks hurt, so I squeeze her hand. Probably she thinks I’m laughing at her, instead of in the face of destiny. Quickly I reassure her. “We’re just friends. Since we were little kids, that’s it.”
“Huh. She said she’d break me if I hurt you.” She puts air quotes around the words “break me.”
Surprise springs up like the flame on a birthday candle. It’s not that I can’t hear Syd saying something like that. When we were stuck learning square dancing in eighth-grade gym, Scott Caldwell kept letting his palm slip up her back and under her bra strap. Finally, she told him if he did it again, she’d break off his hand and shove it down his throat. So yeah, that’s absolutely reasonable in Syd-realm.
I twist in the seat so I can look Hailey in the eye. “She’s just being protective. I’ve never . . .”
Gently Hailey prompts, “Never what?”
“Gone out with anyone. Done any of this. Before.”
“Wait.” Hailey softens, covering our joined hands with her free one. Her voice softens, too, velvety on my skin. The corners of her lips turn up. It’s not quite a smile; it’s tempered and curious. Everything about the way she moves changes the air around us. Instead of cold and thin and tense, it’s newly bright, like the edge of spring. “Any of this? Was I your first kiss?”
I blush, tingling from the static tension between us. “Yes. Is that bad?”
“Noooo.” Hailey slides closer, near enough to kiss. “It’s sweet. You should have told me.”
“I’m kind of glad you couldn’t tell.” I don’t know why, but she makes it easy to be—more. More the self I want to be: fearless and easy and even relaxed. Funny is probably going way too far, but I like the joking and teasing that happen when we’re alone.
Hailey catches me up in a brand-new kiss. On first taste, it’s sweet, her lips feathering against mine Then it ignites. Hunger burns on the tip of my tongue. Our breath falls hard and fast and in time.
We’re breathing each other, devouring each other. The windows slowly rise with a haze. Releasing my seat belt, I slide back against the door when Hailey washes over me.
Her heat, her weight, erase everything. I’m not numb; I’m alive in a whole new way. A ceaseless, sensual way that makes it easy to wrap my arms around her. The front seats are narrow, so we have to hold on. We have to twist together—duck and dodge and slide back in for another deep taste.
This time, we fit together perfectly. Hailey’s hands fall in the right places, my skin rising in chills of delight in their wake. When I venture beneath the hem of her sweater, I dip fingers beneath her waistband, stroking the dimples at the base of her spine. She is creamy; her kiss swirls in me like I’m coffee, around and around until she’s mine and I’m hers and there’s no way to separate us.
On the floor, my bag starts buzzing. I set it to vibrate; no idea who it is and right now, it’s not important. Hailey’s lips, blushed and full, those are what’s important. When she breaks away, I chase her, begging for another taste, pleading for one, getting one.
Her hair escapes its elastic and falls all around us. Each strand leaves a mark on me. With a shake of her head to get it out of the way, she presses me back again.
I love that we’re in the middle of nowhere. That we’re in a car, like it’s 1956 and Lovers’ Lane is a thing. That we’re right on the edge of one country and could tip over into another with ease.
She moves, and it’s delicious. When she strokes my face, the muscles in her back ripple all the way down. Chasing that wave, I rasp my nails against her spine and savor the shiver that rolls through her. The phone buzzes again, and Hailey murmurs, right on my lips, “Should you get that?”
When I reply, my tongue flickers against the part of her lips. “No, it’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” she asks.
This time, I dip more than my fingertips beneath the band of her leggings. She makes a soft sound, and I pull her tighter against me. I want to fit all our curves and edges together, seamlessly. My lips feel heavy, honeyed, and I kiss her chin, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. “So sure.”
So sure, and I’m not sure if the phone vibrates again after that.
I DO NOT GET HOME AT TEN.
It’s 12:42 when I slink in the front door, and I really, really think I’m going to get to sneak to my bedroom and call it a night. I’m kiss drunk and love stoned, obviously. But I don’t need to explain all that to—
Oh no. There’s a light on in the kitchen.
After I shut the front door, the dead bolt latching sounds like a prison scene in the movies: chunk-chunk. Wincing at the sound, I freeze in place when my mother calls my name.
She also called six times while I was with Hailey. Six.
For a second, I seriously consider saying nothing. I’m two years old again. If I can’t see you, you can’t see me. Ridiculous.
“Come here,” my mother calls. She has to raise her voice so I can hear her, and that blunts the tone in it. Is she merely annoyed, or is she furiously angry? Only one way to find out.
I peel out of my coat and take the long, dread walk to the kitchen. It’s hard to pre-construct arguments when I’ve so clearly screwed up. I try, though. I have check boxes in my head.
Pleading to the past: this has never happened before, therefore I swear it will never happen again. Pleading to my character: I’m a good kid who doesn’t get in trouble, therefore this is fine. Pleading to her good nature: I was having so much fun, and lost track of time, and doesn’t she want me to go out more?
What takes me aback when I hit the kitchen door isn’t so much the look on Mom’s face as the color of it. Most of the time, she has a golden, summery shade about her. Her cinnamon freckles make her look way younger than she is. With thick lashes and perfectly pink lips, she looks like she’s wearing makeup even when she isn’t.
But there’s no summer here. She sits at the island in our kitchen with a cup of coffee and a face as grey as slate. With all her color gone and her expression scrubbed down to a sheer, impenetrable expanse, I’m suddenly afraid someone has died.
“This,” my mother says, curling her hands around her cup. “Is not acceptable. How many times did I call you?”
All of my special pleadings fly out of my head. Instead, I bleat out, “We lost track of time.”
My mother’s fingers dance on the edge of her cup. Her nails tink against ceramic, little warnings that I can’t translate but I understand. She’s never been a yeller. (She’s never had to be. My wings were clipped early, and I like school, so what’s to yell about?) She takes a beat, just a second of silence. “What, exactly, is going on with you?”
“Nothing,” I say, offended. What a lie.
“It’s clearly something. This past week, you’ve been up all night—out all night. I know you took my car, Ava.”
All over, I’m slapped with a guilty flush. Rubbing my heel against the floor, I don’t meet my mother’s eyes. Even I can’t justify a lie about the car. I did take it; drove through the night in it. Went to see Jane in it; crashed into Nick because of it. There’s literally nothing I can say to save myself from that, although hilariously, I think, If you only knew why I took the car, Mother.
Mom taps her mug again. “Well?”
Selectively, I carve up my time. I hack it to pieces and stitch it back together, Frankenstein’s truth. Curling my arms on the island, I slump before he
r and look up through my bangs at her. Supplicant, pleading. “It was stupid.”
“Obviously.”
“I just . . . Mom. I really like her. And she really likes me. And I thought it would be romantic to, like, show up at her window in the middle of the night. And I shouldn’t have done it. I was scared the whole way home, I promise. It was so stupid, and I’ll never do it again.”
Gathering herself, Mom takes a deep breath. It’s like she’s charging up to blast me. “You’re right; it’ll never happen again. Next time, I’ll call the police.”
That threat—that promise—is a bucket of ice water dumped over me. Would she really? It’s not like I want to find out, but I sort of want to find out. I think it’s the strongest weapon she has, and she’d never use it. I think.
My nod is staggered, up and down, wobbling sideways. I swear, “I will never, never do it again, Mom.”
“Is that the whole thing?” she asks. She clarifies, “Is that what all of this has been about, this week? Chasing this girl?”
Uh-oh. Instantly I reverse. If Hailey becomes the Bad Influence, I’ll never get to see her again. “No. No. I mean, yes, I’ve been hanging out with her a lot. I—I like her a lot. But Syd is going through some stuff, and I’m trying to help her. . . .”
“I’m not a monster,” Mom informs me. “If you want to go on a date—”
“Nobody goes on dates anymore, Mom.”
Her eyebrow shoots up. “Is this really the time and place for semantics?”
I shrink back. “No.”
“Like I said, if you want to go on a date, that’s great. I’m happy for you! I’m glad to see you getting out a little bit. But you’re not an adult, Ava. You don’t make your schedule; you don’t make your curfew. I do.”
“Okay, okay,” I say. Haven’t I apologized enough? Am I doing it wrong or something?
“And these are the rules.” Mom flips her phone over; her lockscreen is a picture of me in these big round sunglasses, giving her a cheesy grin. She saw the sunnies at the gas station and bought them on a whim. They’re bug-eyed and strange and hilarious, and it’s so weird that that’s the picture she wants to see of me, every day.
All the Things We Do in the Dark Page 16