by Gregory Ashe
He cupped my cheek. His hand was cool. The calluses from roping and riding and from hitting things hard scratched my hot skin nicely.
“Yeah,” I said. And in my mind, the table saw turned faster and faster. It was shining now at the back of my head, the kind of flickering white shine of metal moving faster than the eye can track. “Yeah. I just. I left my bag in the girls’ bathroom, I think.”
“I got it,” Jake said, tossing it to Austin.
Austin caught the backpack and held it out of my reach.
I tried to wipe everything off my face. I just needed my bag. I was going to go to class. I was going to get through the day. I tried to make the thoughts louder. I blasted them to drown out anything else—so that they’d hide anything else.
“All right. We can go to class now.”
I shook my head. “I still feel kind of sick. I’m going to take a minute. Like—in the stall, you know.”
Those turquoise eyes were so bright. “You guys get going.”
“I’m not leaving you—” Jake started.
“Yeah. Get out of here.”
Kaden and Jake shuffled in place for a moment, and then Kaden caught Jake’s arm and tugged him toward the door.
And then we were alone.
“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to assume you said that because they were in here. Now tell me.”
Emmett, face turned into that girl’s neck. His fingers sliding under the lace of her bra. The flicker of yellow light exploding in a corona behind them.
The table saw whipping faster and faster. The shine was steadier now. Stable. At that speed, the teeth could tear through just about anything.
“I’m going to take a dump, all right? Is that what you want me to say? What? You want to watch or something?”
“Please tell me.”
“What?”
“What’s wrong? This isn’t just about Emmett, Vie. Something’s been wrong for months and . . . and I don’t think it’s me. I don’t even think it’s us. But something’s wrong, and I can feel it.”
“Something’s wrong with me. That’s what you’re saying.”
“We agreed: no more lying. No more hiding. No more going away where I can’t see you.”
“Yeah.” I reached for the bag, and Austin pivoted, keeping it out of reach. “Yeah, that’s what we said. But it wasn’t supposed to be fucking literal. It wasn’t supposed to be you watching me every time I need to take a shit. That was just talk, all right?”
“You promised. If you’re going to do this, you promised you’d be honest with me about it. You promised you weren’t going to block me out. I want us to get to a place where you don’t have to do this anymore. I want to help you.”
Austin holding my arm. Austin, hands on my chest. Austin asking me to go for a walk, to go for a goddamn walk with him, because he knew how bad it was going to be and he wanted to spare me.
The white hum of the table saw. It could tear through anything. Those teeth were sharp enough for metal or wood. Or flesh. It could chew right through me. The thought was hypnotic. On its own, a saw blade might be sharp, might be able to cut. But like this, when it spun thousands of times per minute, so fast that it became steel and shadow and glow, it could go through anything. It could go through me. It could slice through me. I wouldn’t even feel it. That’s how clean the cut would be. I wouldn’t even feel it. And wouldn’t it be great, wouldn’t it be perfect, to be taken apart, completely taken apart, and not feel a thing? Not feel it ever again?
“I’m not doing anything, all right? I want to take a fucking shit. If you want to watch, fine. I’ll keep the door open. I didn’t really think raunch was your thing. Guess I was wrong.”
He was blushing now; he was still such a straight boy in some ways. He dropped the bag and kicked it under the first stall. “Fine. Jesus Christ, Vie. Why the fuck do I—”
My tongue was so big it was hammering on the back of my teeth. “Go on.”
He just shook his head. “I didn’t—I shouldn’t have said that. But I don’t know what to do.”
“Easy. Go to class.”
“Hey, will you look at me?”
“Just go to class, Austin. It’s fine. I’ll take my dump. I’ll even record it for you. You won’t miss anything.”
“Look at me for five seconds. Right there. Like that. Look at me like that. And tell me what you’d do if I took that box of razor blades out of your bag.”
“I’m taking a dump, Austin. I don’t even carry those things around anymore.”
“So we’re all the way back here. Things go bad with Emmett, and somehow we’re all the way back here, with you lying, with you hiding, with you putting up a wall to keep me out.”
“I’m sorry I’m not this fucking perfect boyfriend that you imagined—”
“I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t do this with you right now. Not again.”
His footsteps echoed through the bathroom, and the door thudded shut behind him. The son of a bitch in the mirror looked like shit. Some of that was the fluorescents buzzing overhead. Some of it, though, was the fact that he was shit. A huge piece of shit. I didn’t like how he was looking at me, so I went into the stall and kicked the door shut behind me. It bounced back. I kicked it again. And again. And again. And finally, my breath hot, my chest jerking, I slammed the latch home, and it stayed shut.
The table saw whirled brighter and brighter at the back of my mind. That black hole was there too, this giant, gaping emptiness fueled by the pain and the anger, and it was eating me up. It swallowed up everything so that I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. I was going to feel this way for the rest of my life if I didn’t do something. The saw, white and bright as the moon, would be one way. One wonderful, perfect, gleaming way. But the table saw wasn’t here.
The razor blades were in the pocket where I always kept them. I dropped my jeans, dropped my boxers, and stood there. The air was cold. I was cold. That was the only explanation I could give for the way I was shaking, for the way my skin pebbled, for the way the hairs on my arms stiffened. I was cold. I was freaking freezing. The air smelled like piss. A wet S of toilet paper snaked under the stall partition. I was cold in a filthy bathroom. I was so cold.
For a moment, the world was in flux. The hypersaturated colors of the other side bulged, pressing against the thin barrier to reality. From outside the stall came a noise, a soft scuff on the tile. A shoe. But not a man’s shoe. Not a woman’s. A child’s.
And then the world was normal again, and I listened, heard nothing. I was alone. I was still so cold.
I drew the blade across the inside of my thigh.
The table saw slowed, stopped, and hung at the back of my head: just as sharp, just as bright, but frozen. Like the moon. Everything was sharp. Everything was bright. Everything was frozen. The black hole had stopped its cosmic spin. I took in a breath, my first breath in what felt like hours. I was in charge again. I was in control.
And when it ended, I was tired, and I had to wad toilet paper against the cut until the bleeding slowed, and I pulled my clothes into place and went out of the stall, and Austin was there.
His face was red. His cheeks were wet. And he looked at me for five seconds. Maybe five. Maybe four. Maybe three. Maybe one, maybe one goddamn second, maybe that was all he could stand to look at me. And he turned. And he left.
I got to the trash can, and I dropped the blade inside, and I gripped the hard plastic rim to steady myself. It wasn’t anything new. He’d known. He’d known from the minute I said I needed to be alone. He’d probably known from the minute I asked for my bag. He’d known, and he’d left anyway, and so fuck him. Fuck him for judging me. Fuck him for looking at me for one motherfucking second. Fuck him for leaving.
The trash can came up easily. I swung it. Hard. One, two, three, four, five. Five times. He couldn’t even look at me for five seconds, and I swung it five times. And then that mirr
or was all over the place, and the son of a bitch staring back at me was gone.
And a voice, rasping and ancient and tattered like hundred-year-old buffalo hide, spoke into my mind, the words clear and precise and amused. Now I see you.
MR. HILLENBRAND HAD BEEN looking for me, and he heard the glass shatter, and that pretty much put an end to the school day for me. First we had to talk. Then he had to tell me how much potential I had, and why was I throwing it all away, and was everything all right at home. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed at that last part. He mentioned Saturday like it was a big accomplishment. Like living long enough for someone to shove more candles into a cheap-ass cake was a win.
Then, after we’d talked, he had to get Sara on the phone. Only she wasn’t satisfied with a phone call. She had to drive over from Bighorn Burger. And then we had to talk all over again. And then Mr. Hillenbrand left us alone in his office for a moment. To talk.
Sara was a big woman, and her cloud of blond hair made her seem bigger, and the way she held herself, like she was ready to charge in and defend you, that made her seem even bigger. But right then she looked very small and very tired, and the dust storm of blond hair was settling on her forehead, and all she said was, “Let’s go.”
It was a week out of school. For the mirror and for everything with Mr. Spencer.
She drove like she’d never touched a car before: we hit every stop sign like a brick wall, and then her little car reared up and shot forward. At Bighorn Burger, she undid her buckle and opened the door.
“I can still work my shift.”
She froze halfway out of the car. I’d never in my life thought Sara might hit me, but something about the way her back twisted, about the way her hand whitened around the frame, about the sudden stillness in the air reminded me of Dad. And Mom. And my heart started beating so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t talk to you right now. Please don’t say anything else until I’m ready to talk to you.”
She disappeared into Bighorn Burger. After the first minute ticked by, reality started clicking. She was going to call Ginny, my caseworker. And she was going to have Ginny take me away to one of those group homes. If I was lucky, to a group home. Maybe to juvie. Sara couldn’t talk to me, couldn’t even look at me, and so she was going to get rid of me.
Ok. I blew out a shaky breath and flattened my hands on my knees. I’d had so many ups and downs already that day that this new surge of adrenaline turned my stomach. The cut on my leg started to throb harder. Ok. She was going to get rid of me. I’d be out of Vehpese for sure. I’d be gone. No more Austin. No more Emmett. No more Becca. No more anything.
I could steal the car. It was a tiny Ford Focus. It could have come in a cereal box, that’s how big it was, but it would get me out of Vehpese proper and into one of the state or national parks nearby. The boy I’d been when I came here, the boy from the big flat openness of Oklahoma, he would have been a dead man running out there. But I’d spent a lot of time now with Austin and his friends out in the countryside. More importantly, I knew that a lot of people had cabins out there. Cabins that were infrequently used. Cabins with liquid propane for heat. Cabins stocked with canned goods in case of a snow-in. I could make it six months out there easily. In six months, I could have a real plan.
I unbuckled myself and reached for the latch as Sara emerged from Bighorn Burger. She settled into the car, and the Ford sagged under her weight, and she said, “Seatbelt.”
Clipping the buckle back into place, I fell back against the seat as she punched the gas. We drove in those herky-jerks all the way back to her house, and we went inside, to a cloud of cinnamon and vanilla potpourri and the sofa where I lay at night when I talked to Austin on the phone and the kitchen where Sara, the first person in my whole life, had asked me how I liked my eggs, to the first house that had ever felt like a home.
My eyes were hot and stinging. I ran my arm over them and trundled toward the stairs. I’d pack my stuff; I could do that much at least. It’d be less embarrassing when Ginny came to haul me away. Or—or maybe I should leave it? Sara had paid for all of it, after all. And God knows I didn’t deserve to take it with me.
“I’m not trying to be cruel,” Sara said, the words stilted. “My parents wouldn’t talk to us as a punishment, and I always thought that was cruel. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m just so angry right now that I’m afraid I’ll say something I don’t mean. I’d like you to go upstairs and stay there for now. I’ll come up when I’ve cooled down.” She tried to smile; it didn’t get far, but she tried. “I’ve always had a temper. Go on upstairs now.”
So I did. On my bed, staring up at the cracked plaster ceiling, I lay and I waited. It might have been an hour. It might have been longer. Outside, branches clacked against the glass; the Wyoming wind never died, and today was just as cold and gray and stormy as the day before. The phone jangled, and Sara’s heavy steps crossed the room below me, and then the jangle cut off. It jangled again a moment later. And then the house was silent for a long time.
When the knock came at the door, I sat bolt upright. Voices mixed below, and then the steps creaked, and a second knock came at my bedroom door. Austin. My heart skipped up into my throat. Christ, how was I supposed to tell him I was sorry?
“Come in.”
It wasn’t Austin who came in, though. It was my social worker, Ginny Coyote in Sage, who was so tall her head practically brushed the ceiling and was built wide from shoulders to hips. She wasn’t pretty, but her eyes were wide and large and dark, and something about the way she looked at me made me feel like I was a human being.
Except today she wouldn’t look at me.
She shuffled into the room, her big feet clanging off the wastebasket and sending it rolling, and perched on the edge of the rocking chair. The wood groaned in distress. Her eyes moved over the rag rug and settled on my stockinged feet.
“It’s not like I killed someone.”
She smiled, a saccharine grimace, and her eyes moved up to my knees. “I hear you had a rough day at school.”
“Can Sara hear us?”
Ginny didn’t move, but I felt something shift, and then she shook her head. That was Ginny’s ability—one of her abilities. I wasn’t really sure how it worked, but she could make other people go to sleep. Kind of. It was a convenient way of holding a private discussion and ensuring that it remained private.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened today?”
“No.”
She nodded. Her eyes were still fixed on my knees. They were fine knees. They worked pretty well. But they weren’t so goddamn fascinating that I could figure out why she was staring at them. “How are you feeling right now?”
“Ginny, I’m not doing this therapist bullshit with you. I fucked up at school. I know that. But I’ve got to talk to you about something else. Something important. Urho and the Lady are making their move.”
Her eyes shot to mine. They were as wide and dark as a Wyoming night, and fear ran through them like the wind.
I shifted to the edge of the bed, leaning toward her. “This is it. You’ve sat on the sidelines long enough. When Mr. Big Empty was torturing and killing people, you buried your head in the sand. When Urho and the Lady tried to get me the first time, you were gone like fucking smoke. But not this time. This time you’re going to do your part.”
Color stained her cheeks like wine. “I’m not a—”
“If you tell me you’re not a warrior, I’m going to rip your hair out of your head. You’re not a warrior? Fine. So who is a warrior? Me? I can fucking read thoughts. Sometimes. I can glimpse memories. Emotions. Kaden can move metal, sure, but he’s got PTSD or something like it; he tried to jump out of a moving car last night, he was so freaked. Temple Mae can throw pickup trucks, but she won’t look at me, talk to me, acknowledge me unless she has to. Anyway, she’s a kid. And what about the rest of them? Austin, Emmett, Becca, Jake. They don’t have any
abilities, and they’re still out there doing more than you. The only one who comes close to being a warrior is Jim Spencer, and he’s decided it’s too much of a risk to even acknowledge I’m alive.”
“I’m not—”
“Say it. Say you’re not a warrior, and you’re walking out of this house bald as a fucking eggshell.”
Her head dropped, her chin tucking against her chest, and she rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I can’t do anything,” she said in a whisper. “I’m a guide. I helped you, didn’t I? I showed you a way to your abilities. That’s all I can do.”
“Then help the rest of them. Help Kaden so he doesn’t crack up the next time there’s a loud noise. Help Temple Mae so she’s not always trying to hide. Help Emmett—” My voice cracked. My fingers tightened, gathering folds of the quilt, and I shook my head. “Fuck it. You’re just going to run away again.”
Her head came up a little. She was back to looking at my socks. “I think we should talk about you for a while.”
“Get lost, Ginny.”
“This isn’t a permanent solution, Vie. Foster situations are always meant to be temporary. The best thing for children is for them to be with their biological parents whenever possible. What do you think about that?”
My fingers gathered more quilt. “You’re sending me back to my dad.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
Trapped in the quilt’s folds, the pulse in my fingertips felt like micro-detonations. “You’re sending me back to my mom?”
“No. I just want you to know that your father has made a lot of progress. He’s still making a lot of progress. And while I know Ms. Miller has been very responsible—”
“Responsible.”
“She’s an exemplary—”
“She’s—she’s—” I couldn’t form the words. She’s my mom, I wanted to say. She’s the closest fucking thing I’ve ever had to a parent. She’s the only person that’s ever given a shit about me.
“We really believe it’s in the best interest of the child to make every effort to improve the living conditions at home and return—”