Chris is stoned. I can see it in his eyes, the way they’re glazed over, the way he can’t concentrate. His flippant attitude. The way he’s eyeing the food like a famished animal. He’s blitzed, like the thought of being with us had him reaching for an escape before he ever even got here.
“I’m gonna take a quick nap,” he says with a yawn. “Thirty minutes. Maybe an hour. I’ll be right as rain. Get it? Right as my Rayne. My perfect, beautiful Rayne.”
He isn’t making any sense. And he still hasn’t noticed that his perfect, beautiful Rayne is hurt. He heads for the studio next door, leaving the duffel bag behind him, full of dirty laundry, no doubt.
“Amoris, can you salt the potatoes?” Rayne asks, setting to her tasks again, as if this whole disastrous scene didn’t just happen.
Ellis bandages Rayne’s hand. The football game ends. After we eat, Matt sets the bakery pies on the table and does the dishes. I guess he’s good for something. River doesn’t make an appearance until after everything is cleaned up. Then he gets leftovers from the fridge and makes a mess all over again.
Chris sleeps through Thanksgiving dinner, missing it completely. Our house is anything but utopian today. Shangri-La might exist, but it sure as hell isn’t here.
Ellis flops onto my bed like a dead fish. “I’m stuffed. I can’t move.”
I can’t sit down, but pacing isn’t helping with my anger. Chris missed dinner. I can’t believe he missed dinner. Why does he love weed more than our family? And why am I just noticing this now? For years, I thought he wanted me to play guitar while he painted so we could be connected, but really, he just wants music to create by. He doesn’t do it for me, he does it for him.
Ellis is too preoccupied with texting Beckett to see how livid I am.
She called Rayne Mom. I know it was a slip, but that’s eating at me, too. Like Ellis is attempting to take her away from me.
“Beckett wants me to come over tonight,” Ellis says. “I swear he’s a sexaholic. Is that a word? Well, whatever you call people who want to have sex all the time. That’s what he is.”
“Nymphomaniac,” I say.
“Yes! That’s the word. Beckett is a nymphomaniac. He’s got major problems.”
“Then why are you with him?” I ask.
Ellis looks at me pointedly. “Because we all have problems. Hold the bitch-mode judgment, Amoris.”
“I’m just sick of hearing about Beckett.”
“So, let me get this straight—you and Zach have sex and I have to hear all the boring details, but now, you don’t want to hear about me and Beckett. Jealous much?”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Could have fooled me. You just hate that I’m the one getting the attention and you aren’t.”
“What?” I gape at her.
“Oh, don’t play dumb, Amoris. You love attention. It’s why you dated Zach in the first place. Because he paid attention to you.”
“Me? What about you?”
“It’s no secret I like attention,” Ellis says matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty sure any psychologist would say that’s common for girls with dead moms. But I’m not pretending I’m someone else. I own it.” Ellis grabs her purse and marches toward the door. “You, on the other hand, are the worst kind of liar, because you’ve convinced yourself you’re a good person, that whatever you do, you’re doing it for the good of others. But it’s really just to benefit yourself. It’s all about you.”
She leaves, and my room grows achingly silent. I might break down into unstoppable tears. This day has dissolved around me. I can’t stay here.
Sam answers my SOS text almost immediately. On my way to meet him, I check the glovebox of the Airstream where Chris keeps his weed. A bunch of prescription pill containers are filled with perfectly wrapped joints. I take one.
“Where do you want to go?” Sam asks when I get into his car.
“Anywhere but Alder Creek,” I say.
Even if it is just for a night, I need to get out of this town before it suffocates me.
17
IT’S A VERB
Tucker and I are blazed. I didn’t feel high for a while, so I kept hitting the joint. Then it hit me like a bulldozer. My limbs are numb, and my brain is a mix of fog and complete awareness. Like nothing makes sense and yet everything makes sense, but when it actually comes to speaking the truth of the universe, it gets caught in my head and only gibberish comes out. If only a person could see into my brain, all the world’s problems would be solved. But that’s the irony of weed. Chris might be a genius, but he’s the only one who knows it. To the rest of the world, he’s just a pothead.
We’re somewhere between Alder Creek and Eaton Falls, pulled off to the side of a country road, lying in a field on a blanket, stars above us.
“I can’t move,” I say.
“Me, neither,” Tucker says.
“Don’t worry,” Sam says. “I’ll protect you from the bears and mountain lions.” He’s lying next to us, completely sober.
“You’re such a good friend, Sammy,” I say.
“A good friend wouldn’t have let you get stoned in the first place. I’m a great friend.”
“I think the earth is eating me,” I say. “Are we sinking?”
“Yes,” Tucker says.
“No,” Sam says.
“Will you save us, Sammy?” I ask.
“Always.” He takes Tucker’s hand.
When Sam picked me up, he said Tucker had called in a panic. He was hiding out at a gas station in Eaton Falls. One of his little cousins, who was over for Thanksgiving, found his phone and was looking through the pictures.
“There was one from homecoming,” Sam said. “It was completely innocent, but we were shirtless.”
“What did Tucker do?” I asked.
“Luckily, his cousin is too small to really know what she was looking at. He told her we were friends. It’s not like Tucker isn’t around a lot of shirtless guys playing sports, so it’s a plausible story.” And then Sam was quiet for a time, before he said, “But he deleted the picture.”
Sam kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t need to say out loud what he was thinking. No one wants to be deleted, especially by the person they love.
Now as we lie in the field, Tucker holds Sam’s hand, and all feels right between them again. For now. And maybe now is all we ever get.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” Tucker says. He rolls onto his side to look at Sam. “Maybe we should run away.” He sounds too earnest.
“Stick to the plan,” Sam says. “We’ll wait.”
“I don’t know if I’ll make it,” Tucker says. “I might disappear by then.”
Sam turns to Tucker. Eye to eye. “I see you,” Sam says. He brings Tucker’s hand to his lips and kisses it. “I won’t let you disappear.”
I peel myself off the ground, sensing that they need some time alone. “I left something in the car. I’ll be back in like thirty minutes.”
Sam requests an hour.
But the idea of sitting in the car alone is too pathetic. The fresh air feels good tonight, so I wander through the trees. There are no lights to pollute the sky out here. The stars look like countless tiny crystals hanging in the dark night.
It’s freeing to be lost in open space. Like I could go wherever I desire. I never thought that was something I wanted. I’m still not sure it is. But lately I’ve had more thoughts about life outside of Alder Creek.
I sit down, leaning up against a tree. And without thought, because thought has failed me too many times, I text Jamison. The past month, every moment between us has felt tense. But not tonight.
I’m lost in the middle of the woods.
My phone rings almost immediately.
“What the hell is going on, Amoris? Where are you? Are you OK?”
I whisper into the phone. “I’m stoned. It’s rendered me useless.”
“Your text scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” I say, but I th
ink, Not sorry.
His voice changes something in me—an invisible thing, a feeling, an essence, a being. Jamison makes me want to be a better person. Talking with him over the phone, we’re suddenly us again. Everything that’s happened over the past few months is washed away.
“Remember that dog in your neighborhood, the one I was afraid of?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Cooper.”
“Yes, Cooper. He barked a lot.”
“Don’t judge a dog by its bark.”
“I was so afraid of that dog. I thought for sure he was gonna bite me.”
“Nah. He was harmless. Cooper just looked tough.”
I can still picture Cooper’s muscular body, the bared fangs, the sound of his snapping bark.
“You made us ride bikes past his house,” I say.
“It was the only way for you to conquer your fear.”
The memory is so alive in my mind, Jamison holding my hands saying, You can do it, Amoris. You can do it.
And me professing that I can’t! He’ll bite me!
But Jamison promised to be with me. He promised Cooper wouldn’t hurt me. All I had to do was trust him.
Cooper was sitting in his front yard when we rode our bikes past the house. I couldn’t tell if he was on a leash or not, not that it mattered. If he wanted to get me, I thought, Cooper would find a way. He started barking immediately, and I almost turned around. Everything was shaking. I could barely control the handlebars.
Jamison doesn’t know that I was ready to admit defeat. My streak of cowardice goes back a long way. But right when I was about to turn my bike around, Jamison zoomed past me on his, peddling like a maniac. My stubborn nature kicked in. I knew Jamison wouldn’t leave me behind, but I wouldn’t let him go on without me. I needed to be with him. I was so hell-bent on catching up, I didn’t have time to be scared about the dog. I just couldn’t lose Jamison. All I wanted was Jamison. Cooper be damned. When we made it, and Cooper was still sitting safely in his front yard, Jamison jumped off his bike, taking me in his arms and swinging me in a circle. I held on so tightly, I thought I might choke the breath out of him.
But I wasn’t holding him so closely because I was afraid of Cooper. For the first time, I realized Jamison could leave me. He could take off, and I’d be left following the dust of his trail. And I would follow. That’s how badly I wanted him.
“I’d still be afraid of that dog today,” I say, “if it wasn’t for you.”
“Cooper actually died last year.”
“He did? That’s so sad.”
“It was weird to hear the neighborhood so quiet. I kinda missed the barking.”
“You know what I miss?” I say.
“What?” Jamison asks.
“Us.” The answer comes out as more of a whisper, like my mind somehow slipped through the cracks and spoke before I could think better of it. We don’t say a word, but I can feel Jamison thinking. Even through the phone, the pull between us is undeniable. What would happen if we both just gave in?
“So where are you tonight?” I finally ask. “I didn’t interrupt a date or anything?”
“Just a party with friends.”
“Are you having fun?”
“I was until I saw your text.”
“Sorry,” I say again, still not meaning it. Jamison is what I need after such a disastrous day.
“What the hell are you doing getting stoned, Amoris? That’s not your thing.”
I play with the grass between my fingers, feeling the earth and wishing Jamison was next to me.
“My dad missed Thanksgiving. He came home stoned and slept right through it.”
“So, you decided to get stoned yourself.”
“I just needed to . . . get out of my head.”
“And back at Chris?” he asks.
“Maybe . . . a little. How do you know me so well?”
“I’m well acquainted with your self-destructive tendencies.”
I scoff. “I’m not self-destructive.”
Jamison chuckles. “Right . . .”
We both get quiet again. I could stay on the phone with him all night and be completely content.
“You sound different, Jay. Happier,” I say. “Are you happier in Kansas City?” What I really want to ask is—are you happier without me?
“It’s complicated, Amoris.”
“Explain it to me.”
“Now isn’t the time.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “I’m lost in the middle of the woods, remember.”
“Seriously, that makes me worried.”
“Don’t be worried. Sam will find me when he’s ready.”
“Sam’s there? I’m texting him.”
“Come on, Jay. Talk to me.”
“I’m just different here,” he says. “I feel different. Alder Creek isn’t my home, Amoris.”
“But it could be. Can’t you just try?”
“It’s not about me trying.” Jamison’s tone loses its lightness. “We can talk about this later, when you’re not stoned.”
“No,” I say. “I want to talk about this now.”
“Just drop it, Amoris.”
“If you hate it so much, why move here?”
“I didn’t say I hated it.”
“Well, there are plenty of other towns in this state. You didn’t have to choose Alder Creek.”
“Haven’t you figured out by now why I came?” Jamison yells. All my words disappear. “I’m texting Sam to come find you.”
“Don’t,” I finally manage. “Not yet. Please.”
“I have to go.”
I want to keep talking, but my mind is in a fog. Damn this weed. Did Jamison just say he moved to Alder Creek for me?
“Don’t move,” Jamison says. “I’m texting Sam to come find you.”
I want to beg him not to hang up, plead with him to just stay with me. We can figure this out. Just don’t leave. Don’t let me go. Don’t give up on me. I know I’ve made mistakes, but I’ll do better. Instead, I say, “Enjoy your party.”
“Don’t do that, Amoris.”
“Do what?”
“Self-destruct. Tell me you’ll stay put until Sam finds you.”
I pause, out of petulance, before conceding. “I’ll stay put until Sam finds me.”
I’m sitting against the tree, phone in my hand, when Sam comes through the darkness. He picks me up off the ground, and we walk back to the car.
“Have you ever noticed that love is a verb?” I say to him.
“Profound.”
“I need to do something, Sam. I need to show him.”
“Who?”
“Jamison.”
“What are you going to do?”
The next day, as I’m lying in bed, the brain fog finally starting to recede, an idea comes to me. Jamison told me what he needed, but he was afraid to do it himself.
The mural.
It needs to go, and I’m going to make that happen.
18
BACKMASKING
I remember the first time I heard the words “I buried Paul” at the end of the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever.” It’s harder to hear on my grandmother’s old vinyl than on the newer digital remasters of Magical Mystery Tour. You have to listen really closely, past the crackles and white noise. But after I heard it once, I could never listen to the song again without hearing it. It was like this thing that barely existed, a whisper you aren’t sure you even heard, all of a sudden becomes a shout.
Right at the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever,” when the music gets all psychedelic, with flutes and brass and drums, like the instruments are trying to distract you from what’s really going on, a person speaks: I buried Paul. Your ear has to reach for it or you’ll follow the twittering flute instead of the words.
But once you hear it, it’s like being invited in on a secret.
After that, I was so intrigued, I got online and researched all the other messages I’d missed. “Strawberry Fields F
orever” wasn’t alone. The Beatles loved secret messages. They riddled their albums with them.
It was during my research that I first heard the term “backmasking,” where a message is recorded in reverse, and the only way to hear it is if you play the vinyl backward. At the end of “I’m So Tired,” it sounds like John Lennon is speaking gibberish, but played in reverse, the gibberish becomes words. Unless you know about backmasking, you’ll always just hear gibberish.
For nearly eighteen years, I had been playing the record how it was meant to be played. The way my mom taught me, and her mom taught her. I’d forgotten a record could spin in a different direction, revealing a whole new message.
I go to school early to meet with Lori, having emailed her the night before, asking for an impromptu meeting but not divulging what about. She didn’t ask. She simply said to come to her office.
I don’t expect to see anyone, so when Ellis appears in the hallway as I’m walking to the guidance office, I’m startled. I hadn’t noticed her black Jeep parked outside, but I have a lot on my mind this morning.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“What are you doing here?” I counter.
“Senior Senate meeting. We’re voting on prom locations.” Ellis states it so plainly that I feel foolish for avoiding her question. But I haven’t had any communication with her since she called me an attention hog and stormed out of my room to go hook up with Beckett, and I don’t particularly want to talk to her now. I have heavier things on my mind.
“Don’t be late on account of me.” I continue down the hall.
But Ellis hollers after me and runs to catch up, so I have no choice but to stop.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I was a bitch on Thanksgiving. It’s just . . . you know how I get on holidays. Empty Chair Syndrome rears its ugly head.”
That’s what Ellis started calling it after her mom died. At random moments her mom’s death would become so overwhelming, Ellis couldn’t breathe. She’d notice that her dad still slept on the same side of the bed, or that he only drove his own car so her mom’s was constantly parked in the driveway, or that he’d set the table for three people, so there was this empty chair where her mom used to sit. Like they were just waiting for her to come home. Ellis said it was like every day she was taking roll call, and when she got to her mom’s name, no one answered. And each day she couldn’t help but ask again, even though the seat would always be empty.
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