by Sarah Ready
“I want you,” I say.
“I want you, too,” she gasps.
“I need you.” I say. Her eyes are bright and beautiful.
“I missed you,” she says. And the way she says it, like she wishes she could say more, drives me forward. I push into her, touch her everywhere, thrust so deep that I imagine I’m touching her soul. And then, I think I am, because she’s crying out and I feel her tightening on me. And I can’t stop myself. The only thing I know is that I have to keep going, I can’t stop, I have to be inside her. With her always. The pressure builds. My whole body fills with want. The only thing I want in the whole world is to be with her. Right here. Right now.
She arches into me and cries out my name. Then she’s grasping me so hard that I can’t do anything but what she’s telling me to do. The world disappears. It’s just her and me. And all I can do is feel her, and empty myself into her, and give her everything I have.
It bursts from me and I shout her name. Spill myself into her. Make her mine. Slowly, her climax reaches its end. She stops pulsing around me and the world comes back into focus. Her eyes look like they reflect the stars, the whole universe. If I could make her look like that every day, my life would be complete.
Gently, I lean down and brush a kiss over her lips.
She reaches up and with quiet tenderness she brushes my jaw with her fingertips.
I roll over onto my back and pull her on top of me. The night air is cool, so I wrap my arms around her and kiss the place where her neck and collarbone meet.
“Okay?” I ask.
She settles her head on my chest. My heart beats against her ear and I rub my fingers lightly over her shoulders.
“Better than okay,” she says.
She relaxes against me and we stay quiet listening to the night creatures. I circle my hands over her back and start to wonder how long we can stay like this.
“I was thinking,” I say.
“Yeah? Dangerous thing,” she says.
“About the future.”
She stiffens and I curse myself for broaching this too soon. For spoiling this moment.
“What about it?”
She sits up and goes to her clothes. The dark and her long hair hide her face so I can’t see her expression, but her shoulders are tense.
I sit up and pull on my clothes too. It feels wrong, like we’re distancing ourselves and putting on armor.
“I thought you and I could…”
Her back is to me, but I see her stiffen even more. “What?”
“Be more than friends.” I let the statement hang in the air. She doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t turn around. “What’s wrong? Will you turn around?”
She does, and I wish she hadn’t. Because her eyes tell me that she’s not interested.
“When are you leaving?”
I look down. “We could do long-distance.”
“When?” she asks.
I look up. “Probably in the next week or two.”
She nods and clenches her hands. “No thank you.”
Her no hits me in the gut. “Why?”
She doesn’t answer.
What does she want?
I gesture around. “You want me to stay here? Stay in Centreville forever? What was all this for then? You knew I’d be leaving.”
She turns her face away from me. When she looks back the stars in her eyes are gone.
“Why did I train you?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“What was this all for?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. Something in me needs to know, needs to hear her say it.
She looks back to the driveway, to the road leading away from here.
“Well. It wasn’t for you. And it wasn’t for me. Figure it out yourself.”
I’m struck by the anguish on her face.
I’m an idiot. It’s always been for Bean. None of this was about me. Or us.
“What was this then?” I gesture to the matted down grass. “A thank you fuck? Goodbye?”
She turns away and wraps her arms around herself.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. That was an asshole thing to say.”
“No, you’re right,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
We’re only standing a few feet apart, but I might as well already be in California.
“Ginny,” I say. She looks up at me, and I tell her what I should’ve started with. “I love you.”
She closes her eyes and then wipes at a tear on her face.
“Please don’t,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t. I can’t depend on you to always be there. And I can’t depend on me to make it through.”
I go to her. I gather her in my arms and I hold her. She drops her head on my shoulder.
“I don’t want this,” she says, “I can’t be more than friends. Tonight, it was a mistake.”
My chest feels like it’s cracking open, but I keep holding her.
“Okay,” I say. “Alright.”
We stand there for a moment longer and I realize this is likely the last time I’ll ever hold her. I get where she’s coming from. I know her as well as I know myself and I understand. There’s only so much one person can carry, and sometimes the thought of sharing that load with another is too scary. So you keep the burden all to yourself. I understand.
“If you ever need me,” I say.
“I know,” she says.
And that is the end.
We walk back to her car and I hold open her door for her. As she gets in, her phone rings. She pulls it from her pocket.
“It’s Enid,” she says. “Yes? What? Slow down.”
I watch as her face drains of color and she looks at me with growing fear.
“I’ll be right there. Call the police. I’m coming.”
She hangs up.
“What is it?”
“It’s Bean,” she says.
And I feel like the world didn’t end before, it ended just now.
“She’s gone.”
20
Ginny
Bean’s not in her bed. She’s not in another room, not in the yard, not at home. She’s gone. As soon as Enid told me, a cold fear washed over me and filled me with icy dread. I fight to keep moving so that I can find her. I can’t give in to fear because if I do I’ll collapse. I know this.
Where is she? Where could she be?
“Bean,” I yell. “Bean, where are you? I’m here. Bean?”
I hear Enid calling out “Beatrice?”
And Clark shouting, “Bean?”
Liam runs up to me. His jaw is clenched and he looks scared. Do I look like that? Do I look that scared?
“She’s not here,” I say.
“No.”
We’ve torn the apartment apart, we’ve looked in every nook and cranny of house. We’ve looked everywhere.
“Where could she be,” I say.
“The police are coming,” he says. But they have to drive over from the county seat, they’re at least another thirty minutes away.
I shake my head.
“We’ll find her,” he says.
I turn on him and the helplessness I feel makes me lash out. “If we hadn’t… If I’d gone home when I said I should.”
He shakes his head. “No. You can’t know.”
“Yes.” I turn on him. “If I hadn’t stayed with you, Bean would be safe. She’d be in bed right now.”
He looks as if I punched him. That he doesn’t believe what I’m saying. But it’s true. It’s true.
I turn away from him and jog over to Enid. “Tell me again what happened.”
She nods and wipes at her eyes. I’ve never seen Enid cry, not once in her life. The sight of her tears scares me.
“Enid?”
“Heather came by,” she says.
I nod. “Yes.”
“Finick ran off after a fight and she couldn’t find him. She was worried. Asked if he’d come by.”
“A
nd he hadn’t.”
“No. That boy’s been getting into trouble with his friends at the abandoned mill.”
“And then what?”
“She was crying. I soothed her. Then I saw Beatrice.”
“She was in the doorway?” I can picture her, watching wide-eyed, worrying about her friend Finick.
“That’s right. She asked if Finick was okay. I said, laud sakes, child, get back to bed.”
“And then, when you checked on her later, she was gone.”
Enid’s face pinches and she nods.
“Nothing else?”
Enid presses her hands into her eyes, then, she looks back up. “Beatrice said to Heather that she could find Finick because she was…some stuff and nonsense…” She holds up her finger. “Superhawk.”
I inhale sharply.
“Skyhawk,” says Liam in a low voice.
A chill runs over me. “She went to save him,” I say. Bean went out at midnight to save Finick. “The old mill.”
I sprint toward my car and Liam runs after me.
The old mill is pitch black. It’s not been in use for thirty years. I run through the high grass and jump over rusted scrap and rotting logs.
“Do you see anything?” I ask.
Liam runs next to me. He has out his phone and shines the flashlight in front of us. Three tall metal silos rise up in front of us. They look like one-hundred-foot-tall monsters with dark cylindric bodies.
“Bean,” I shout. “Finick.”
Liam calls out and our voices are swallowed by the eerie quiet of the dilapidated ruin. I keep running. Old, rusted trucks lie on their sides and grass and weeds wrap around them. Liam flashes his light over them and in the dark the rust looks like blood and the metal looks like bones left to rot.
We pass a metal shed. “Look in there,” I say.
He passes his flashlight over the graffiti. A door hangs off its hinge and he shoves it aside. I run up behind him and peer over his shoulder. The shed is empty except for broken vodka bottles and a dead rat.
“Nothing,” he says.
We turn and keep running toward the silos. They loom over us and I pray that Bean is there, sitting in their shadows, safe with Finick. That we’ll find her.
“Bean,” I shout again. “Bean, it’s Mama. Where are you?”
There’s a shriek and I startle. Whip around. Liam shines his flashlight up and an owl dives overhead.
“Bean?”
We make it to the busted and cracked concrete where the grain silos stand. They are so tall. The stairs up are long since broken, they hang off the silos and look like a twisted version of chutes and ladders. I spin in a circle and Liam shines his flashlight through the rubble and the grass.
“Bean? Finick?” I call.
“Finick. Bean.”
Nothing. Silence is our answer. Not even the crickets are singing at the old mill tonight.
“They’re not here,” I say. “She’s not here.”
Liam’s jaw tightens and he shakes his head. “Keep looking—”
“They’re not here,” I say.
Then we both look up. There was a noise. A scraping sound. Something.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
He nods.
“Bean?” I call.
“Finick?”
Nothing.
We wait. I hold my breath and strain my ears, pray for a sound, a voice, anything. But finally, I have to breathe again, and when I do, “They’re not here. We can go back. Call Enid, see if the police—”
“What was that?”
Then I hear a weak call, a human voice calling from the darkness.
“Bean? Bean, where are you?”
“Up there,” says Liam.
He shines his flashlight up the largest grain silo. There, a hundred feet up I see Finick. His arm hangs over the side and…he’s not moving.
I cry out and run to the silo.
“Ginny, wait,” says Liam. “It’s not safe.”
I look up at the broken stairs, at the twists of metal that in places hang off the sides. “I don’t care,” I say.
“Wait for the police. I’ll call, get them here.”
I can’t. There’s no way. Finick’s not moving. And where’s Bean? Why can’t I see her?
“I’m going,” I say.
Liam shakes his head. His face goes white. This is his worst nightmare, come to life.
“I need you,” I say. “They need you. Please.”
I grab the metal rail of the stairs and start to climb. It rattles and swings under my weight. My heart pounds and I taste the metal tang of fear in my mouth. Still, I climb as quickly as I can without putting too much pressure on the groaning stairs. But then the sharp shriek of metal sounds and the section of stairs I’m standing on swings away from the silo. I scream and grab the rail with both hands.
The rust fragments bite into my skin and I start to slip. The stairs groan again, shake and I’m dislodged from the rail. The breath knocks out of me. I’m twenty feet above the ground and in free fall. I can’t breathe to scream. I can’t…I’m not…I can’t save Bean.
It’s a millisecond but a thousand thoughts flash in my mind. I’ve failed. I’m falling, the stairs twist around me, I’m falling and I’ve let my daughter down. I can’t save her. I never could save her. She’s hurt and sick and I can’t save her. And now, I’m falling and when I hit the ground I might die. I might not survive to see her again. And I love her so much. I love her with everything that I am. But I’ve failed. In my mind, I see George, he’s swimming down through the black water, coming back to me, to save Bean, to save me. Is this how he felt? Like it didn’t matter if he didn’t survive, because more than anything he had to save us? His face lights above me, I reach up to him. “I can’t save her,” I say. “I can’t save our baby.”
“You don’t have to,” he says. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Let go.”
“I can’t.”
“Let go,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I failed.”
“I love you. Both of you,” he says.
Then he’s gone and I’m alone. And instead of being pulled to the surface, I’m falling. It’s all done.
The millisecond passes, the rest of my life flashes before my eyes, and the one thing I see, the one thing I see that I wish I’d seen before was that I didn’t have to do it alone. I could’ve let go, shared the burden.
Not just on a superficial level, where I kept parts of myself back, but all the way. I should’ve trusted. I should’ve let him help me. I should’ve let him love me.
Liam.
I wish I’d told him the truth. That I love him too.
But now, instead of hearing that, he gets to see me fall.
To hit the ground.
He gets to relive his worst nightmare, except this time, he has to watch it happen. Which, I think, is a thousand times worse. Watching someone you love get hurt and not being able to stop it is the worst pain in the world.
21
Liam
Ginny climbs up onto the stairs and the panic that consumes me when I think of flying, of falling, starts to scrape along my insides. I drag in a breath. I can do this. The panic clenches at my throat and presses down on my chest. I blink as my vision goes in and out. The memory of my spine crunching against concrete clashes around my skull.
I drag in a deep breath, beat back the panic. Ginny’s already ten feet up. She’s going without me. To save Bean. To get Finick.
I look up at Finick’s arm, hanging over the edge of the silo, at least a hundred feet up. Dizziness. I stumble.
“Do this,” I say. “You can do this.”
The panic is there, a beast waiting to consume me. Keep me here, planted on the ground. Safe in its grasp. For years I’ve run from it. Fought it. Retreated from the world. Nothing I did worked, not therapy, not medication, nothing. I look up at Ginny, she grasps the railing and inches along the stairs. They groan.
Be a hero.
Be a hero.
She needs you. They need you.
There’s nothing in this life I want more than to be with Ginny and Bean. Be someone they can depend on. Be more than a hero. Be their family.
This time when the panic grips me, I don’t fight it. I don’t struggle against it. I invite the monster in. I open myself wide.
It rushes in, takes over. The fear, the pounding heart, the terror, the falling sensation, the knowledge that I’m going to die right now grips me. Twists me. I can’t breathe.
More, I tell it.
My body goes cold then hot.
More.
I can’t breathe.
More. Do your worst.
I open myself to it, I let it ravage inside me, and I don’t fight it. I let all of the terror, fear, panic fill me and I surrender to it.
Just let it be. Acknowledge it. Accept it.
And then, I run.
I sprint toward the stairs and pull myself up. All the training, all the running, every minute of physical training I’ve done has been preparing me for this moment.
The stairs swing wide and I grab a ledge and pull myself up higher. Ginny’s only ten feet above me. I take the stairs as fast as I can.
I look up, and see what Ginny doesn’t. The section above her has pulled loose from the silo. Most of the bolts are missing. When she runs onto it the metal screeches angrily. My blood runs cold. The stairs yank away from the wall. She grabs the railing, starts to fall. Her legs fly up in the air. The stairs fall and Ginny’s falling with them.
I don’t think. I run as fast as I can. Sprint up the stairs. Leap toward her, and as she passes through the air. I dive forward. I grasp my railing with one hand, leap over the edge and grab her wrist.
She’s still hanging onto the railing of the dangling stairs.
Her eyes are closed.
“Let go,” I say. I grit my teeth. I’m hanging from the stairs, holding her up with one hand.
“I can’t,” she says.
“Let go.” I say.
Then, the stairs she’s on falls away completely. And she’s not letting go and I can’t hold her.
“Let go,” I shout.