Hold Me Close

by Megan Hart

  “I’m only seventeen, Heath. What do you want me to do? Run away from home? Live on the streets? I’m going to college next year. I’m going to make something of myself. Not like you.” Her voice rises. Her fists clench.

  “You think I’m nothing.”

  She doesn’t. Effie thinks, in fact, that Heath is everything. He is too much to her and she to him. Even at seventeen she knows it. The girls in her class, her “friends,” are worrying about who will ask them to the prom, and none of them have any idea what it’s like to love someone so much you’d die for them. Literally die.

  Heath rakes a hand through his dark hair, which has been cut shorter than she’s ever seen it. He told her he was going on job interviews again. Without a high school degree, without the hope of getting a further education, there isn’t much out there for him. Gas station attendant. Stock clerk. It’s been a year since they got out of the basement, and Heath’s quit or been fired from a dozen jobs. He can’t make anything stick. Nothing but Effie, anyway.

  “I have to go,” Effie says. “I told my mom I was going to the library. She thinks I was going to write you a letter instead of telling you in person.”

  “Why didn’t you?” He paces a little, hands shoved in his jacket pockets. His boots are scuffed, and the way he kicks at the gravel shows how they got that way. He won’t look away from her.

  “I wanted to see you.”

  Something small and hopeful glimmers for a second in his gaze before vanishing. “You should’ve written a letter. It would’ve been easier.”

  “I don’t care about it being easy,” Effie says.

  Then he is kissing her. Hard and hot and leaving her breathless. His hands on her. Over her clothes, cupping her breasts, then under her shirt to touch her bare skin.

  Last weekend Effie went to a slumber party with some girls from school. She’d been best friends with a couple of them in middle school, but they’re not close anymore. She pretends they are, hoping maybe it will become the truth. They all played Truth or Dare and the biggest question was about who’d “done it” and who had not. None of them had.

  Effie had lied and said she hadn’t, either.

  “But I thought—” Wendy Manning had started to say before Rebecca Meyers shushed her.

  Effie knew what all those girls thought. In the year since she’s been home, the rumors have flown fast and thick. But Daddy had never touched her. Not like that. He’d done a lot of things, but he’d never done that. It was a lie to say Effie was a virgin, but faced with that solemn-faced group of girls, Effie was not about to say anything else. They still giggled about touching “it” or French kissing. None of them understood sex at all.

  When Heath pushes a hand between her legs now, Effie pulls away. “No.”

  She hasn’t slapped his face, but she might as well have. Heath frowns. He reaches for her, but she dances out of his grip again.

  “I said no!”

  “You don’t have to worry. I brought something,” Heath says. “We’ll be careful this time.”

  Effie’s lip curls. “You want me to fuck you right here on the picnic table? Classy.”

  “I want to be with you, and I want you to feel safe, not worried about anything happening again. But you know if it did, I’d take care of you.”

  Effie hops off the picnic table. She doesn’t want to talk about what happened. She doesn’t want to think about it. “No.”

  “You don’t love me,” Heath says.

  This is too much. All this time and all that happened with them, and now he wants to tell her that he loves her? What is it supposed to mean, what is she supposed to do about it now, when everything has changed?

  “I already told you how I feel about that,” she snaps. “It’s easy to love someone when they’re all you know.”

  “Effie, please...”

  “No.” She holds up a hand, backing away from him. “We can’t go back to where we were, Heath. Don’t you get it? What happened to us, it was totally fucked up. Okay? We had a super shitty thing happen to us, but we got out of it, we made it through, and now...it’s over. You can’t hold on to it. It’s not normal. It’s crazy. It’s wrong between us. You have to let it go. You have to let me go.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Not wanting to and not being able to are not the same things!” Effie wants to punch him with her fists but settles for hitting him with her words, forcing him back a few steps.

  Heath holds up his hands. Turns his face. He stops moving so that if she keeps advancing she will be pressed against him, and she stops herself from doing that. They stand less than an arm’s length apart. Close enough she can see the throb of his pulse in his throat.

  “Loving you has nothing to do with choice,” he says.

  “Because we never had one!”

  Heath is silent.

  Effie lifts her chin. “You’ll find someone else to love. We’re still kids. You never find the one you’re supposed to be with forever when you’re a kid.”

  “There is no forever for me without you,” Heath says, and Effie knows he means it. “If I never see you again, Effie, there will still never be anyone else but you.”

  She’d learned about sex, but whatever she’d believed she knew about love shatters in that moment, leaving her broken in its wake. Shaking her head, Effie says nothing as she backs away. Three, four steps take her to the driver’s side of her father’s car. She’s behind the wheel a moment after that. Staring straight ahead at the road, wondering what would happen if she drives herself straight into a tree.

  She unbuckles her seat belt.

  She puts her foot on the gas.

  But in the end, Effie is not about to die for love. Not again. Not ever.

  When she walks in the front door, her parents are waiting for her. So are two uniformed policemen who exchange looks when her mother flies up off the couch to grab her. Effie recognizes one of them. He was the one who found them in the basement. Effie remembers that he held her hand while they waited for the ambulance.

  “What’s going on?” She tries to slip out of her mother’s clinging, desperate grasp.

  “You’re all right,” Mom says.

  Her father swipes a hand over his face. “Thank God.”

  Effie, staring over her shoulder at the cop, turns her attention to her mother. “Yes, I’m fine. I told you I was going to the library.”

  “Effie, we know you weren’t at the library,” Officer Schmidt, that’s his name, says. “You were with Heath Shaw in Long’s Park.”

  Effie fights off her mother’s grip. Panic rises. “Where is he? What’s wrong? What happened to him?”

  “You don’t need to worry about him anymore,” Mom says, but Effie won’t even look at her.

  Her father takes a step forward but stops when Effie shakes her head. She glares at the cop. He should understand, more than any of them.

  “Where is he?”

  “Heath attempted to take his own life shortly after you left him. He was discovered by a jogger and taken to Lancaster General Hospital. He’s in stable condition, but he’ll be remanded to a psychiatric care facility for the next few days while he’s monitored.”

  “He tried to kill himself?” Effie sags, vaguely aware her mother is tugging her arm to get her to sit on the couch. She allows herself to be pushed. She shakes her head. “What did he do?”

  “He cut himself.” Officer Schmidt’s voice is gentle, and he doesn’t look away from Effie’s eyes, not even for a second. “It was unclear whether or not he’d harmed you, however. He told us you’d been together, but not if you’d left safely.”

  “Of course I did. Heath would never hurt me. Not ever.” She shakes off her mother’s attempt at a hug and buries her face in her hands. The world spins. She thinks she might vomit right t
here on the rug, and won’t her mom be upset then, when Effie makes a mess?

  “Now that you’re home safe, that’s all we need to know.” Officer Schmidt comes closer to squeeze Effie’s shoulder. He looks again deep into her eyes, then takes a business card from his pocket and presses it into her hand. His fingers are strong and warm. “If you ever need anything, Effie, anything at all, I’m here for you.”

  Lots of people will tell her that in her life, but only a few of them ever are.

  chapter nine

  Polly had brought home a thick folder stuffed with information about the science fair. It was not optional. It was going to be a nightmare.

  Effie, paint smeared all over her hands from the projects she’d been working on all day, gestured. “Okay, so what are some of the choices?”

  “Testing the amount of sugar in sodas. Raising baby chicks. Ooh—”

  “No,” Effie said. “No way.”

  Polly rolled her eyes but ran her finger down the rest of the list. Her small mouth pursed, her brow furrowed. She looked a lot like Effie’s mom when she did that, and a wave of love for her daughter forced Effie to the sink so she wasn’t caught being all mushy. Sometimes Effie wondered if in her pursuit of not being too attentive, too hovering, she’d somehow ruined Polly. The girl was blessedly and casually independent, not at all clingy or a hugger. Still, not needing someone and not believing they would be there to help you when you needed it were two very different things, and although it never seemed as if Polly didn’t trust Effie to take care of her, there were plenty of times Effie felt as though she’d come up short in the parenting department.

  Polly paused with her finger on the paper. “I could grow plants in different soils with different kinds of water. Like, with acid and stuff.”

  “Acid, that sounds pretty dangerous.” Effie scrubbed at the paint under her fingernails. She’d been working on a commissioned piece and was hating it, which was why she’d still been painting when Polly got home. Usually she tried to be finished by the time school ended so she could spend time with her kid. Procrastination, thy name was “Chuck Norris Riding a Unicorn.”

  “Not, like, superbad acid, Mom. Like, I dunno. Baking soda or whatever.”

  “Baking soda is acid? Since when?”

  Polly shrugged. “How about I could try to design a thing for an egg that protects it from breaking when you drop it off a roof?”

  “Does that involve you going up onto a roof to drop things off it?” Effie scrubbed a little harder, looking over her shoulder.

  Polly grinned. “Maybe.”

  “Also no way. You’re the kid who broke her leg tripping over a shadow on the sidewalk. I’m not letting you up on the roof.” Drying her hands, Effie turned to lean against the counter. “Can’t you pick something easy and delicious, like testing different types of chocolate chip recipes to see how they change when you add or subtract vital ingredients?”

  “Is that on the list?” Polly shook the papers.

  “I have no idea, but if it’s not, it should be.” Effie came closer to look over Polly’s shoulder. “It would be fun. And I could be your taste tester.”

  “You don’t eat cookies with chocolate chips in them,” Polly said matter-of-factly, then paused. The girl had always worn her emotions all over her face. She looked scared now, and sad, and Effie’s heart sank.

  “What is it, Pollywog?”

  “Meredith Ross said... She said...” Polly caught her breath and bit her upper lip with sharp white teeth.

  Meredith Ross was a shitty little princess diva whose mother had gone to school with Effie. Delores Gonzalez had been a few years older than Effie, but she’d lived two houses down from Effie’s parents, so the walk back and forth to school had often been made only a few steps behind her. Effie had very vivid memories of the back of Dee’s head. They’d never been friends. Dee had been there the day Effie came home. The entire neighborhood had turned out to welcome Effie with a party like something out of a nightmare. It had been her father’s idea, God bless him. He’d meant well. He’d had no idea how hard it would be for Effie to come back home and face all those people.

  This wasn’t the first time Polly had complained about Meredith. Once, when Effie was eight and Dee ten, the older girl had made fun of Effie’s favorite dress. It sounded as if Dee’s daughter was following in her mother’s footsteps. Effie kept her expression neutral, though. Polly already looked on the verge of tears.

  “What did she say?”

  Polly ducked her head. Her shoulders heaved on a sigh. She shook her head, not speaking.

  It wasn’t like her to be so reticent. Effie pulled up the chair next to Polly’s. Their knees touched. She took both of Polly’s hands.

  “Hey. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Polly shook again, this time with silent, wrenching sobs. When she looked at Effie, blue eyes wide and confused, Effie’s heart broke. She pulled Polly close, stroking the girl’s blond hair over and over.

  “Mama, is Heath my dad?”

  Effie paused as her fingers snagged in Polly’s hair. She untangled them gently and squeezed her daughter harder. “No, honey. No.”

  “Meredith said Heath is your brother, and that he’s my dad! Both!” Polly’s voice broke, agonized. She pushed away to stare at Effie. Her mouth worked. Her cheeks had flushed crimson.

  “Oh, Polly. Honey...no. Heath isn’t your dad. He loves you very much, but he’s not your dad. And he’s not my brother.” Her voice hitched on that word. Brother. Sister. Daddy. She tried so hard never to think about Heath in that way, no matter how many times she’d been forced to call him that. Effie grabbed a couple of paper napkins to wipe Polly’s face. “Why did Meredith even say such a thing?”

  “Because she’s a bitch!”

  Effie choked back laughter and made her voice stern. “Polly.”

  “She’s jealous because I got invited to Sam Walsh’s party, and she didn’t. Because she’s mean, that’s all. And Sam’s mom said she could only have four friends over, and I was one of them. But Meredith got mad.” Polly sniffled. “So she told everyone that Heath is your brother and I’m his kid. She said it was illegal and gross, and that I was probably deformed, because that’s what happens when brothers and sisters have kids together.”

  Effie’s stomach turned over. “Polly. No. I promise you, Heath is not my brother. If he was, then Nana would be his mom, right?”

  Polly sniffled again but looked relieved. “Yeah. And Nana doesn’t like him.”

  “No, she doesn’t.” There was no point in lying about it.

  “Because something happened when you were younger,” Polly said with some more confidence.

  Effie hesitated. She’d never discussed with Polly what had happened to her from the ages of thirteen to sixteen. She’d meant to when Polly got older, probably when she was closer to thirteen herself, but she was only eleven now. There hadn’t seemed a need to get into the details. It was actually something of a surprise that nobody had ever told her anything about it before now.

  “Yes. That’s why Nana doesn’t like him,” Effie said.

  “It happened to you and Heath together?”

  Effie nodded. “Yes.”

  Polly frowned and plucked at the hem of her shirt before looking at her mother. “Meredith said the only reason you ever sell any paintings is because people on the internet are perverts.”

  “Meredith Ross needs to keep her mouth shut, and so does her mother.” Effie’s voice rose, and she forced herself to calm. “Don’t listen to her, honey, okay? She’s a jealous little brat. You don’t need to worry about my paintings or anything else. It’s none of her business. You just concentrate on being the best Polly you can be, and ignore her.”

  Polly didn’t look entirely mollified, but she nodded. Effie hugged her again, squeezi
ng tight before letting her go. She held the girl’s shoulders gently for a moment, though, looking closely at her daughter’s face.

  “If she gives you any trouble, Polly, you tell me. I’ll talk to the teacher.”

  “No!” Polly looked alarmed. “Mom, no. Don’t do that, I’ll get called a tattletale.”

  “Is she telling everyone this stuff?”

  Polly shook her head. “I don’t think so. And if she did, I’d just tell them it’s not true. Because it isn’t. Right?”

  “Right.” Still angry but not showing it, Effie looked over Polly’s list with her as they tried to settle on a project. Leaving it to be decided another time, she shooed her kid off to watch an hour of television before dinner.

  Her phone buzzed with a call she picked up without looking to see who it was. Expecting her mother or Heath, Effie was ready to launch into a bitter tirade against tween girl bullies but stopped short at the sound of a male voice. “Oh. Mitchell. Hey.”

  “Hi, Effie. Is this a bad time?”

  She looked at the pot of water she was boiling to make boxed macaroni and cheese. “I’m just putting together a gourmet feast for me and my kid. How are you?”

  “Good, good. I thought I’d give you a call. See if you wanted to chat.”

  Effie hesitated. “I’m kind of in the middle of some things. Maybe later tonight?”

  “Oh, sure. Dinner and stuff. Right. I should’ve thought.” Mitchell laughed softly. “Bachelorhood tends to make you forget about things like regular mealtimes.”

  Somehow, she doubted that. Mitchell had not impressed her as the sort of guy who survived on day-old pizza. Was he angling for a dinner invitation? That was the problem with this dating stuff, Effie thought. It was so much more complicated than bringing home a guy from a bar and sending him home in the morning with a phone number one digit off so he wouldn’t be able to call her again.