A Cold and Quiet Place

by Alison DeLuca

  The usual quick upward jerk of his chin is Tyler’s only response. He waits until Erica goes into the locker room and bends closer to Lily’s ear. “Thought you were done with her.”

  “She’s my friend. I mean, we’ve been friends for, you know, forever. Plus she practices here, so I can’t exactly avoid her. Not that I’d want to, anyway…” Lily’s foot itches, and she lifts one leg to scratch her toes.

  “You should have blown off practice, just like I said. Didn’t I tell you? I’m always right. If you weren’t such a spoiled idiot, you’d actually listen to what I say. Words, Lily – they mean things.” Tyler’s mouth spreads with triumphant confidence. “Anyway, go get changed. I got the truck outside.”

  Lily feels his hand, warm and insistent between her shoulder blades. She has no time to respond before she’s propelled into the locker room.

  ◆◆◆

  The green and brown boxy truck belongs to Tyler’s father. There are plain boxes stacked in the back, bungeed to the metal sides and floor. She knows they contain MRE’s, a water purification system, and a small tent.

  Tyler swings into the driver’s seat, slams the door, and pulls out a laptop. “Okay. Don’t want this to go over wifi, so I’ve saved it to the hard drive. Here.”

  Puzzled, Lily leans over the center console. There’s a screen grab of what looks like code. “What is it?” she asks.

  “See this number?” Tyler runs the pointer over one line of the code. “Now, watch.” He pulls up another png. “Notice anything?”

  “They’re the same number. Where’d you get this stuff?

  “You kidding? My dad knows all kinds of hackers. They’re always breaking though government firewalls. Pathetic.” It’s not clear if he means the insult for the hackers or the CIA computers.

  He grunts and returns to the first document. “Guess what this code is for? The hate blog you found.”

  Lily feels her stomach sink, as though she’s about to jump off a bridge. “And the matching numbers?”

  His grin returns. “IP address. My dad’s guy used his software to get through their firewall to track it. even though the phone’s source changes with different routers, the NAT translates it to this.” He stabs two identical strings of numbers and letters. “You know what this means, right?” The pointer clicks back to the second doc. “It’s all laid out here. Shows the time, date, location, everything.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Yeah, well.” Tyler closes the laptop, moves his seat back, and folds his arms. “You already know what’s up, right? Finally making the connection? Your little friend in there, the one you were so cozy with on the bleachers, she’s a hypocritical bitch. It all comes from her phone number, the one you first showed me last year. Like I said, I’m always right.”

  ◆◆◆

  Lily has to call her mom and explain what happened, why she left with Tyler instead of waiting. “Are you at home?” Mom demands. “I just got here. Erica was none too pleased, by the way, and I don’t blame her.”

  Tyler reaches Lily’s house and parks in the driveway just as she’s able to hang up on Mom’s play-by-play accusation. The garage door is closed, its white paneling a blank screen of irritation.

  His kiss is demanding, all teeth and tongue. As soon as Lily gets into it he pulls back, leans against his door, and takes out his phone. The screen displays a girl Lily doesn’t recognize. “Yeah,” he answers.

  Lily hesitates, climbs out of the high seat and jumps down from the truck. Don’t date anyone with tires bigger than you, Erica once told her on a sleepover. They giggled under a blanket fort together that night, strung out on sugar and friendship.

  She could confront Tyler and demand to know who’s on the other end of the line. Already Lily knows what would happen. She can map out every word of the future conversation. Her question would be met with his disgust and accusations, a long litany of her faults.

  As usual, she’d be the one who was wrong.

  Her ribs ache. She can’t breathe. Lily closes the door, watches Tyler back up the truck and head onto the street until the sound of his engine dies away.

  In the end, it’s easier to avoid the fight. If she demands to know who just called him, it will turn into a long ordeal and, in the end, become her fault. Lily opens her mouth, and her exhale sounds like a sob.

  The path to her door is greased with new rain. Overhead, clouds glower and bunch in weird shapes: a heart. A knife. A turnip.

  When she opens the door, Vincent sits on the steps. Ham and Lettuce are on his lap, side by side like two fur footballs. As soon as Lily comes in, he raises one finger to his lips.

  Her parents are in the kitchen. Their voices are a strained chorus of dismay. “But why did you let her leave with him?” her dad whispers. She can picture his face turning red as he asks.

  “You don’t understand. It’s just easier for everyone in the end if I go along with it. She’s not going to leave him, and he tortures her if I interfere.”

  “What? ‘He tortures her if you don’t interfere!’ Did you hear her the other night? ‘Tyler. Tyler. Tyler.’ I was ready to jump in the car so I could go and punch him out. It drives me insane.”

  A clink of glass on glass. Mom’s making herself another drink. “She’s my daughter too. All I can do is my best to make the situation as easy as possible …”

  Dad hushes her. A door opens, shuts, and the kitchen grows quiet. Their parents must have gone out to the patio.

  Vincent’s eyes are huge behind his glasses as he strokes the calm, sleepy guinea pigs. Lily plops next to him on the step and feels as though she’s the one who’s just been punched.

  Her relationship with Tyler affects her entire family. She, Vincent, and even her parents are connected with invisible lines like butterflies in a web.

  Maybe being a family means you all drown together.

  Those aching, desperate thoughts fade with the soft wheeking of the pigs in Vincent’s lap. His team sweatshirt smells like detergent when she wraps an arm around his shoulders.

  The tiny moment is an island of calm. The website, Prescot, her swim times, and – and Tyler. The peace is shattered when the kitchen door slams again. “Lily!” Dad calls. “Where are you? Lily!”

  “I’m here.”

  He strides into the foyer and holds up his phone. “Did you see what your boyfriend just tweeted? About how sexy his fellow students are! Do you know a girl called Bree?”

  Lily sighs. “Yes, dad, I do.”

  Mom hovers in the background. “Did you meet her when we visited?” She lifts her glass and drinks.

  “Yes, mom, I did.”

  The glass falls from Mom’s hand and smashes on the floor. The sound makes Ham squeal and jump like an exploding popcorn kernel. Lily’s horrified to see tears in Dad’s eyes. Her father should be a rock or a fortress, and instead she’s made him cry.

  “He ignores you,” Dad chokes out. “I heard you the other night – must have said his name a thousand times. Fucking treats you like shit… Sorry, Vin. I didn’t mean to curse. Like crap. And look at what he writes about this girl – how nice she is, how beautiful, amazing body, smart…”

  He trails off as Lily takes the phone and reads the thread. Tyler and Bree have a trail of flirty messages back and forth. The exchange reminds her of how he used to be with her, funny and attentive.

  Mom disappears into the kitchen, and Dad purses his lips as they hear ice and more liquid slosh into a glass. “We should clean up the hall first!” he shouts.

  “Maybe if we’re nice to him,” Mom replies from the kitchen. “I told you his father was a head case. Maybe Tyler will be the way he used to be – such a polite boy when I met him.”

  Vincent shrieks. “Shit! Ham peed on me!” Out of nowhere, he bursts into tears. Lily hasn’t seen him cry since he was in first grade.

  “Just because I cursed doesn’t mean you’re allowed to.” Dad blinks and points to the stairs. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s get you and the p
ig cleaned up.”

  Lily sits on the steps, frozen with horror. Vodka seems to have become Mom’s drug of choice, her dad can’t handle the situation without cursing, and Vincent has regressed to his seven-year-old self.

  “Here.” Mom waves a roll of paper towels as she enters the hall and gets on her knees. “Could have told him I’d have this cleaned up in no time.” Her words come out in breathless spurts. She pulls off a wad of towels and swipes vodka off the wood floor in sloppy ovals.

  On the steps, Lily crosses her arms over her stomach. Her insides ache, but whether it’s from hunger or nausea is hard to tell.

  ”I have to do homework.” Lily scrambles up to her room. From the bathroom, she hears Dad rumbling to Vincent about curse words and guinea pigs.

  The quilt Lily’s grandfather brought her from a vacation in Spain is soft under her cheek as Lily comes apart. It not just tears, more the sensation of her body dissolving into molecules and atoms.

  When she’s empty and undone, Lily sits up and draws in a long, shuddering breath. There’s no more avoiding what she knows, way deep down, what has to be done.

  It’s time.

  Her phone is in her pocket. She takes it out and scrolls through the Twitter messages between Bree and Tyler, a flirtation spelled out in pixels for the entire Internet to read. Even with the decision she’s about to make, it isn’t easy to read the tender messages. He jokes, You’re so cute, like a kitten or something, and Bree flirts back, Aw! Look who’s talking sexy…?

  Lily taps his number and anxiously waits for Tyler to answer as the phone rings. He rejects her call. She tries again and again but he refuses to answer.

  It leaves her no choice. Lily’s hands shake as she types in the text message. I’m sorry, Tyler, I can’t take it any longer. We’re done.

  One of the biggest decisions of her life only requires a few keystrokes. She stares at what she’s written and feels blank inside.

  In the bathroom, Vincent insists he never meant to say a bad word, that it was all a mistake.

  “I know,” her father soothes. “I know, buddy.”

  “But I really didn’t, dad!”

  Unable to think of any reason to hold back, Lily presses Send and falls back on the bed, breathless from what she’s just done. Her grandfather’s quilt feels like the satin pillow under a suicide’s corpse.

  Lily chokes on darkness, feels as though she’s six feet under the ground. Her heart thunders, and she tries not to cry out and upset Vincent. The kid’s been through enough for one day.

  Erica picks up as soon as Lily punches in her friend’s new number. “I can’t do it,” Lily whispers. Rolling off the bed, she pads to the closet, steps inside, and closes the door. In the darkness, she sinks to her knees and sobs. “Can’t do it, Erica. Can’t do it.”

  Lily relates the break-up in hiccups. When she stops to suck in musty oxygen, Erica asks, “Why should you do anything? Whatever it is, I mean?”

  “I’m talking about school. Prescot. I just broke up with Tyler and I can’t go. I can’t leave.”

  “There are schools here.”

  “Yeah.” Lily nods, even though her friend can’t see. “You’re right. I could – I could – but it’s the middle of the year …”

  “You can figure it out. And guess what. I’m proud of you for breaking up with Tyler, I mean. I didn’t want to say it before, but he’s a dick. You’re so much better off, and I know it was hard, but you did it. You did it, girl.”

  Her heart pounds in Lily’s chest. She can’t breathe right after crying. Even her skin hurts, as though there’s acid in her veins. “Erica?” she adds, afraid to ruin one of the few good things she has left.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tyler said you were the one who started the hate site about me on Tumblr. Sorry, you know I wouldn’t… but I don’t know what is up or down … I just…”

  “No.” Erica’s voice is firm, filled with conviction. As soon as she speaks, Lily believes her. “I promise I didn’t start the Tumblr. If I ever found out who did it, I’ll kick their asses. That’s a promise.”

  “Okay.” Lily apologizes until Erica tells her to stop and go talk to her parents.

  It’s good advice. Lily’s made her decision, and now she has to act on it. Life is about to change. She stands up, opens the door, and feels the rush of fresh air on her face.

  Already there are five texts on the phone screen from Tyler. Lily can see the words, although she tries not to read them. They might suck her back into the shadowy, nightmare maze where she’ll drown. What do you think gives you the right and you’re gonna be sorry and it’s your loss and it’s all a joke, don’t you get it, the Twitter thing is just a joke. I told you I texted her because I couldn’t see you all the time. So in the end, this is all on you. It’s all your fault.

  As she watches, another message pops up. She can’t help seeing the words: You just failed my test.

  17

  My new boyfriend – so hot! Jealous much?

  Lily can’t believe Bree’s post has gone up so fast. The girl has changed her profile picture to a shot of her and Tyler kissing at what looks like a party. Behind them, rowdy undergrads lift red Solo cups. Ben’s hanging over Tyler’s shoulder, face split in a wide grin. Obviously, the roommate doesn’t care his hookup has moved on.

  Lily knows the kiss is Tyler’s ‘In Your Face’ tactic. She could do the same thing for revenge by calling James, Pete, or any one of a dozen guys she knows. Wanna hang out? A few hours later, she could post her own make-out session on Instagram.

  The thought exhausts her.

  But Ben was the one friendly face at Rosemont. When Lily was lost, abandoned by her boyfriend, Ben was the one who came to her rescue.

  Lily flops back on the pillows and throws her phone on the bed. She squeezes her eyes shut and tells herself the tears are for Ben and the lost possibility of a new friendship. Crying over Tyler is a waste of time.

  A tap on her door makes her sit up, scrub her eyes, and suck in a painful gasp of air. “Come in,” she says, trying to keep the sadness out of her voice.

  Mom opens the door and trips over a pair of jeans on the rug. She grumbles about the messy room but trails off when she looks at Lily’s face. “Crappy day out, huh?” She sits next to Lily, and the bed dips under her. “You need to go back to school. No, I don’t mean Prescot. We know you can’t leave New Jersey at the moment. I’m talking about school here. We have to re-register you before the state comes after us for being delinquent parents.”

  “Mom. I don’t want to – I gotta go to swim practice.” Lily’s phone vibrates, and she can’t help picking it up. Erica wants to hang out later. They ‘need to talk.’ She types Okay, cool and tries to listen to the rest of what Mom tells her about school records and paperwork. Lily interrupts after a few minutes. “Jesus, mom. I can’t…”

  “What you can’t do is sit up here, day after day, surrounded by dirty laundry.” Mom sniffs and kicks a pile of wilted t-shirts. “You wear sweats all the time, you never go out…”

  “I was at practice this morning!” Lily sits up, outraged.

  “Besides practice, I mean.”

  “Erica just texted. We’re gonna hang out later.”

  With a sigh, Mom gets up and heads to the door, still nagging as she opens the door. “Bet she’s coming here. Right? God forbid you actually leave the house. We all want to support you, Lily, but I swear you’ve got a butt-shaped dent in your bed. Not even kidding.”

  With a frustrated howl, Lily bounds off the mattress and stabs Erica’s number. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she says as soon as Erica answers. “You still want to get together? Okay good. Not my house – not yours either. Food court? After practice? Okay, perfect. See ya.”

  Lily hangs up and drums her fingers on the edge of the dresser. In the depths of the mirror, her reflection looks back – pale-skin, messy hair, lips cracked with dryness. She can’t remember the last time she put on makeup.

  Her
depression wafts her into the bathroom, where she trails a washcloth over her face. There’s moisturizer in a glass jar by the rack of toothbrushes, but Lily can’t summon the energy to put it on. Instead she rakes fingers through her hair and scowls.

  Before she can go and climb into practice gear the doorbell rings. Lily hears Vincent murmur to Ham or Lettuce – “It’s just a guest, silly piggy, not an axe murderer, just chill.”

  Bright voices splinter downstairs, followed by loud feet thumping the staircase like scales played on an oversized piano.

  “Lily!”

  Erica’s voice. Lily sticks her head out of the bathroom and sees her friend, all glammed out with a new haircut and sparkly shadow on her eyelids. She’s wearing mascara and lip gloss as well. “Why are you all decked out?” Lily asks. “Is there a new cute coach I don’t know about? And I thought we were going to meet up at practice…”

  “I just couldn’t wait to tell you.” Erica threads her fingers through Lily’s to pull her inside the bathroom. “Mom just got the letter today. I’ve been accepted to Prescot. We head up there next week.”

  “What?” Lily shakes her head. Taking entrance exams to get into private school was such an intense process, complete with exhaustive interviews and long essays. She and Erica went into the ordeal, certain they would both get accepted.

  They knew they’d go to the same school and be roommates. It was supposed to be magical. Lily’s acceptance into the finest private school in the country when Erica got nothing was a setback to their friendship, but they managed to handle it. They’d always been best friends, after all.

  Erica and Lily. The two names always went together.

  And now Lily’s the one at home, not even re-registered in her old school yet, about to be left behind as Erica waltzes off into the horizon. “Are you serious?” Tears prick Lily’s eyelids. Crying again – she’s always teary lately.

  “Yup. I guess they had a vacancy when you left.” Erica peers at her. “Hey, you’re not mad, are you? You don’t know what it’s been like, ever since you left. Mom’s been on my case all the time. She goes on and on about swim times and grades and self-confidence, and how it’s all my fault I didn’t get in when you were accepted. It’s like she can’t shut up. And Dad just looks at me and shakes his head, like I’m such a disappointment…”