Fall to Pieces

by Vahini Naidoo

  His fingers eventually bury themselves in his pockets. He meets my eyes. I can feel the sparks, the explosiveness of him traveling between us. We breathe and we breathe and we breathe. And I realize that I don’t want to be a bitch to Tristan anymore.

  I want to—Oh, god. I don’t even know what I want to do.

  “Shit” is all he says.

  “Yeah,” I reply. “I’m coming down now.” I fix him with a look of pure poison. “Don’t let me fall.”

  He knows what I mean. If I fall, it will be like a Pick Me Up.

  I throw myself onto the window, throw my legs over the edge. He takes a few steps back, and I can’t help but roll my eyes a little. I know I’m moving with a bit more verve than usual, but did I really look that bad before?

  “What?” I glare at him.

  “Nothing, nothing.” He shakes his head. “Just, you’re back to being a bitch. So I know everything’s normal.”

  He grins, and I try to grin back. But it feels like I’m splintering into a million little pieces. I can’t stop thinking about Amy. About the fact that it may not have been a suicide.

  “Right,” I say, trying not to dwell on it.

  I twist my body around to start sliding down when I catch sight of something. “Shit!” I reach out and grab the inside edge of Mark’s window. Splinters, cutting into the palm of my hand. About ten of them.

  “Hang on, there’s something I have to see,” I call to Tristan.

  “Well, I’m enjoying what I’m seeing,” he says. I can practically hear the laughter in his voice, and realize that he probably has a very unflattering view of my ass right now.

  “Fuck you,” I growl as I haul myself up, back through the window as ungracefully as the last time. I’m obviously not made for petty crime such as breaking and entering.

  I stumble into the room and across the carpet like a drunk in heels. There’s something hanging on the back of Mark’s door. He’s taped a message to it.

  PETAL. ELLA.

  It’s addressed to us, in capital letters. The sight of our names, in bright red was what caught my eye before. Another one of Mark’s cryptic clues, and I don’t know what the hell it means yet.

  The words beneath our names: GONE FISHING.

  Under that is a picture of a fish chewing on what I can only guess is some bread crumbs.

  Mark. Has. Gone. Fishing.

  Mark’s not exactly the sit-in-a-boat-for-ten-hours type. Because, if nothing bites, he’ll be bored as hell and just jump into the water or some shit.

  Except. Apparently, he’s gone fishing, for an extended period of time. Otherwise he wouldn’t have felt the need to inform the world. He’s planning to be gone long enough that we’d come here looking for him.

  “What the hell?”

  I rip the piece of paper from the door, fold it into a tiny square, and slip it into my pocket. Then I slip-slide-fall my way out the window again. Tristan catches me, and he’s just sort of holding me. Our faces are so close and I think he’s going to kiss me and allmythoughtscrashtogether like ice cubes in a glass of whiskey.

  But he doesn’t kiss me in the end. He just puts me down and half turns away, looking awkward. Smelling of gunpowder.

  His hands are stuck in his pockets again. “So, um, what was it?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way to Petal’s house. We need a car. Do you happen to have one?”

  He shakes his head a few times and then says quickly, “Ella. Breaking and entering, okay. Cool. But grand theft auto, not so much.”

  I punch him on the shoulder and wink. “I’ll make a criminal of you yet.”

  “I have a car,” he says. “I have a car. If we walk to my house.”

  But he seems so nervous. So fucking nervous.

  “You don’t have to come—You could just give me the car—”

  “I’m fucking coming. Deal with it,” he snaps.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  TEN MINUTES LATER, we’re standing in front of tristan’s house. It’s not what I imagined. Somehow—I suppose it was the constant smell of gunpowder—I was expecting something grittier. I thought my Explosive Boy would live in a bomb of a house.

  But his house is a suburban dream. Red bricks, ivy. Fucking lattices, and lace in the windows. Only the picket fence isn’t white; it’s blue. I glance at it and raise my eyebrows. “Subversive, dude,” I say.

  “Dude?” he returns. “Since when do you speak like a pothead?”

  “Since now, obviously.”

  “Come on, the car’s in the garage.”

  We head over, and Tristan pops open the garage door, revealing his wheels.

  I lean back a little and whistle. Well, his house may not be a bomb, but his car sure is.

  He shakes his head at me. “Unimpressed, I see, Princess Ella.”

  “Understatement. I’m like anti-impressed. Kids who smell like gunpowder should drive good cars, in my opinion.”

  “Gunpowder? What is up with you and all this gunpowder shit?”

  “Come on,” I say. “You mean you haven’t noticed that you smell like you wear fucking matchsticks for cologne?”

  “No.” He bites his lip. Bites it and bites it and bites it and doesn’t say anything. “No,” he repeats finally. Heavily.

  “Let’s go to Pet’s, okay?” I say to break the silence.

  He nods and walks me around to the side of the car. Opens the door. “Come on, Princess.”

  He’s mocking me. So I mock him right back. Fluttering eyelashes. Stepping as if I’m walking on balloons. “Coming, Prince Charming.”

  I slide into the seat. He’s laughing as he walks to the other side of the car. He gets into the driver’s seat, and his hand shifts to the gear stick. Before he can move it, I close my own fingers around it. Meet his eyes.

  “Call me princess one more time, and I will knee you in the balls.”

  He just laughs. Guns the engine. It roars and guzzles and sputters to life like a monster. And then we’re pulling out of the driveway. The car cruises, not smoothly, but it’s still cruising. There’s still sunshine on black roads. There’s still that sticky, mellow feeling you get from being in a car on a fairly warm day.

  I lean back, forget for a second, and Tristan lets me. He doesn’t break the quiet with words; but his fingers drum, drum, drum against the wheel as he drives.

  But every good thing has to end. Eventually, he has to ask a question. “Instructions, please? I haven’t been stalking Petal, so I dunno how to get to her house.”

  I laugh. “Who have you been stalking?” I ask. “Didn’t take you for a stalker.”

  He sighs. “Well, damn that,” he drawls. “It was always my aim to be taken for a stalker. Seriously, though. Directions, please.”

  I open my eyes with a sigh. Look around. We’re on the main road in Sherwood. Tristan spins us into the roundabout.

  “That way,” I point. “Then just take every left, and you wind up in front of Petal’s house. It’s at the end of the cul-de-sac. The ugly yellow house.”

  “Complimentary.”

  “Oh,” I laugh. “It’s beautiful on the inside. Petal’s family just doesn’t give a fuck about appearances.”

  Unlike mine. Unlike my perfect mother, who had to do all that PR damage control after Amy died since Dad was nowhere to be seen. But instead of calling with condolences, the assholes she works with had lectures on their lips. Alcohol? Why did your daughter have alcohol?

  My mother should have been honest. She should have said, “I was in fucking DC and my husband was god knows where and we don’t really know.”

  Instead, she’d rattle off her spiel about “youthful indiscretions.” She had it memorized, and, word for word for word, she gave it to everyone who called. As if I were some business document. As if I’d become work.

  I didn’t even have Amy to rant to about it.

  “You okay?”

  We’ve made it to Petal’s house without me even noticing the roads flying by. “Yeah. Fine.”<
br />
  My placebo pill–word.

  I am finefinefinefine all the way to the door. When we get there, I can’t move. We stand there and stand there. Eventually, Tristan gives two sharp raps against the peeling wood with his knuckles.

  The door swings open ten seconds later. It’s Petal’s brother. He’s twentysomething, and we made out once during a game of spin the bottle at a party. As a result, he can barely stand to look at me. He flushes red. “Um, hi,” he says.

  “Hey.” I stare, hold his gaze, and watch him squirm.

  I feel so stupid, but I can’t help myself. I just do it and do it until he coughs and then I look away, and my eyes are burning as if I’m about to cry again. I turn them down, toward the planks of the porch, as he says, “I’ll get Petal for you.”

  I nod and keep on staring at the planks. His footsteps make soft thuds against the wood floors as he walks off.

  I let myself breathe deeply.

  “You okay?”

  I wish Tristan wasn’t so concerned. It reminds me of everything I am, of everything I’m not.

  Of the little girl I once was, the little girl I’ve lost.

  I sniff, and my gaze bores farther down into the scratchy wood of the porch. And I can feel Tristan’s hand on my shoulder, and I can tell that he knows I’m not okay. My head, it wants to collapse onto his shoulder and just rest there.

  But I have to pull it the fuck together. I have to pull it together, because I can hear footsteps again, and they’re lighter and quieter this time. Petal. I need to keep this up, keep the nuts and bolts plugged into my IKEA kitchen personality for a little bit longer.

  Just until she breaks, or Mark breaks.

  Just until I know whether one of them pushed Amy.

  I raise my head, stare at the space framed by the door’s dark wood edges. Fix my gaze on the white wall with cracks spidering across it.

  In my peripheral vision, I see Petal emerging in the doorway.

  Petal’s here. She’s here, and I can play coy bitch with her even though I don’t really want to.

  Mark’s camera has a gray strap; I slip my finger through it and twirl it in the air. Once, twice, three times. Petal catches sight of the camera, and her eyes widen. She says my name as if it’s an explanation for everything. “Ella—”

  She covers her mouth, and it sounds like she’s choking, and then she’s spitting out “Amy, Amy, Amy” as if she’s drowning and she needs to cough up water before she can suck in air.

  And then she’s out the door, and the door is closed. Quiet as a whisper, she slides down the wood, through the peeling paint, onto the wooden deck. Dust flies up from around her butt.

  “What happened, Petal?” I want to drag her to her feet. I want to seize her by the collar and scream, “Did you fucking push Amy? Did you fucking push Amy?” But she looks so pathetic that I can’t. My body won’t.

  My heart won’t let me.

  We stand there, and the silence roars with Petal’s sobs. Her hand hovers over her stomach as if it’s hollow.

  I want to hug her. But I won’t, won’t, won’t.

  I have to keep this up; I have to do this. Just a little longer, just a few more pushes. I just need the truth and then I can stop.

  My voice wavers as I say, “Why did she jump?” And now it’s me who’s begging. I’m begging her to tell me what I want to hear. That there was a rational explanation for the most irrational of actions.

  And the pain is so great. The pain is worse than the splinters that still dig into my skin. It’s so bad that snippets of memory start to fly back to me.

  I won’t let go. I won’t let go. I won’t let go. Her hand is in mine.

  And then she stands and drags me up with her.

  Everything goes blurry. Faded lights. Shouting. Voices, voices, voices. Words punching through the dark.

  Then. Then her body sails through the air. The wind rushes up from beneath her. Jacket soaring up like a fucking parachute. For a second I think it will save her, that she’ll float. But only for a second.

  Thwack. I close my eyes. Open them.

  She sprawls in the grass. In front of the fucking gnome.

  “She jumped because she was fucked up,” Petal says, disrupting my memory. “She jumped because she wanted to die.”

  I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. There’s this tug-of-war within me. It’s like every cell in my body has been split in two, and each half is screaming different things at the other. The first half yells that Petal’s telling the truth, that she wouldn’t lie. And the second half is yelling, screaming, crying that I had Amy’s hand.

  Her fingers were knotted through mine.

  I would not have let her go.

  “I didn’t let her go.” I run my fingers through my hair. “Pet, she didn’t jump. She couldn’t have jumped. Something must’ve happened, because I didn’t let go of her.”

  “No,” Petal whispers. “No, you didn’t. Shit, Ella. I can’t tell you this. Go ask Mark. We decided—if you ever asked, ever remembered—he’d be the one to say.”

  “You planned this?” My anger blazes like a bonfire.

  But then her voice is so soft that it turns my heart into a big puddle of water. “We wanted to protect you, Ella. Trust me, if I could forget, I would. If I could choose not to remember, I would.”

  “You don’t get it.” I pace up and down her porch now, on the verge of tearing my hair out. I make do with snapping every single stray thread on the bottom of my T-shirt. They’re unraveling, anyway; I’m just helping things along. “You don’t get what it’s like not knowing. It’s so fucking—it’s like...I don’t even know, Petal. It’s crap, utter shit. Please tell me.”

  But she just looks at me—looks through me. She’s seen a ghost.

  “Where’s Mark?” she says eventually.

  “Mark’s gone fishing.”

  Petal stares at me.

  She looks so helpless. A leaf tossed around in summer winds. Petal, who throws punches with her handbag when other girls get in her way in the lunch line. Petal, who gave James Talen a black eye because he dared to call Amy fat.

  The backs of my eyes sting with tears. How the fuck can I think it was her fault? Mark’s? The people who were always there for Amy.

  Because all the signs in my memory are pointing at them, that’s why.

  And suddenly, Petal’s springing to her feet. “We have to find him,” she announces.

  “Well, no shit, Sherlock,” I drawl. Because even now I want to keep my cool. I need to keep my shit together.

  I am fine.

  “No,” she says. She runs toward Tristan’s car. Like actually, literally, sprints to it and rattles the door handle, trying to get it open. “No, you don’t get it. Gone fishing.” She says it as if I’m the slow one. “Mark’s gone to the lake. Mark’s gone to the lake, Ella—”

  The lake. Fuck.

  I run to the car and Tristan follows me, unlocking the doors. We all pile into the car.

  “God, Tristan, I don’t know if you have enough gas, but I need you to take us to Lake Longshore.”

  “Why?” he says, but he’s already driving. “Try not to zone out this time, Ella. I need directions.”

  I open my mouth, but Petal beats me to an explanation. “He loved it. He loved it way too much; that was the problem. It was his zen place, his perfect place; and ever since he’s been vanishing there. And he started to go for longer and longer and—”

  He never told me about his photography. He never really tells us about his feelings. He never speaks about what’s going on in his head. I have no idea why he’s doing this. Why is he running away?

  Because that’s what he’s doing. That’s what “gone fishing” means.

  But then I realize that this is, in a way, a second chance for me. I couldn’t save Amy, didn’t notice her when she was crying out to be noticed, because it hurt me too much. I didn’t want to understand her. But now, even though I’m spitting mad at Mark, I want to know what’s
going on in his head.

  Silence stretches in the car like a coastline, as far as the eye can see.

  “And?” Tristan says, eventually breaking it. His knuckles are white against the steering wheel.

  “About a week before he made one of his many resolutions to get clean, Mark went out to the lake,” I say, picking up where Petal left off. This is me being brave; this is me communicating instead of simply talking. “He just sat there. He was gone for almost two days and then Amy got this text: ‘Gone fishing. Lake Longshore.’ It was like he suddenly remembered that people might be worried about him.”

  I shake my head. There was this glazed look on Mark’s face when we got there. He was so out of it, dirt streaked across his face. Dirt under his fingernails and his eyes so wide. He didn’t want to come back home.

  He said something was going on with his family, but he wouldn’t tell us what.

  Petal offered to let him stay with her, but he shook his head no. He said, “I couldn’t impose on you like that,” as if he were forty and she was some stranger instead of his best friend.

  I didn’t even know he had language like that in him.

  About ten seconds later, he broke down. Because it’s easy enough to pretend that you’re growing up when you’re ten and so much harder to actually do it at seventeen.

  Back then it was Amy who held him, Amy who kissed his tears away—what fucking bullshit that seems like now—and then he said, “If I ever want to run away, you’ll know where to find me. I’ll ditch my stuff here and then head out, because I’m a dickhead like that.”

  Joking tone. Serious eyes.

  We chose to trust the tone over the eyes.

  Tristan remains silent, but I notice his knuckles whiten even more. I notice that the engine roars a little louder, notice our pace picking up.

  We need to reach Mark before he ditches his stuff and runs.

  I don’t know how long it’s been since he left, but hopefully we can get to him before he’s halfway to another state.

  I can’t let him run away. I don’t want to lose another friend.

  I turn my head so that it’s facing out the window and no one will see my tears but the blue sky, the parched grass, and the road signs.