Borrowed

by Lucia DiStefano

  “Who said anything about you being smart?”

  Chris tries to reach around me to jab at Ezra, but I’m still keeping him pressed against the building.

  “Stop!” I say. “Both of you!”

  “Maxine’s not a consolation prize,” Chris yells. “I’ve seen how you look at her. But she’s with me. So get out of her life!”

  I grab Chris’s arm, accidentally squeezing the gauzed tattoo. He yelps as Ezra throws a roundhouse over my head into Chris’s jaw.

  I duck and try to scream, but it comes out sounding like a gurgle. Despite blood at the corner of his mouth, Chris is smiling a smile full of sneer.

  People from across the street are whooping and hollering.

  I’m on my feet again, trying to pull Ezra off Chris. Time slows down one moment, races ahead the next. I’m begging for Ezra to stop, then for Chris to stop since he’s throwing punches now. And I’m worried about the fists going from Chris’s direction to Ezra’s.

  There’s a crowd building around us, people spilling out of bars nearby: Lustre Pearl, Bungalow, The Blackheart. A streetlight flickers overhead, adding to the feeling that we’re on a stage.

  The siren in my head is louder now, closer and sharper. Chris and Ezra drop their fists, look around, panicked. Cops.

  They each grab one of my hands as if I’m a wishbone. Before I can move, I’m forced to let one hand slip away.

  13

  LINNEA

  I need to conserve my energy. Holding the clipboard, I sit on the step-stool. Fingers numb with cold, hands quaking with panic, I flip another order form to the blank side and write.

  Even through the needles of cold, some part of me feels a flush of warmth, or maybe just a memory of warmth, at the thought of him. Whatever it is that’s between us is too new to put in this note. Who will find it? And find me? Nicola? Leo? I keep Daniel to myself.

  My fingers are giving up. My brain is giving up. Words are stupid things. Clumsy. Cold. Empty. I fold the square of paper, wet with my tears, and shove it into my pocket. I feel my keys in there too. Talk about useless. The key to the restaurant, the key to my house. The metal zaps my fingers. I don’t have any reason to believe Leo’s in the kitchen, or that he can hear me if he is, but I try again. Pounding on the door. Screaming. The guy doesn’t like me, but he wouldn’t leave me in here, would he?

  I scream until I’m sure my throat is bleeding. I batter at the door handle with the doorstop until my hands don’t feel like part of me anymore. The zero-degree cold welcomes me, pulls up a chair for me, tells me to have a seat and make myself comfortable, because it is going to be my host for the foreseeable future.

  First it’s like there are thousands of tiny bees swarming around me, stinging me with ice.

  And then the bees go away, and the cold swaps out the chair for a chaise lounge, and I’m stretched out on it, on the gritty floor, imagining I’m a cylinder of freezer cookie dough, waiting to get sliced into portions.

  My breath is a jagged puff of ice. My skin is a field crunchy with frost.

  My heart? What about my heart. Her heart. Did it travel from her to me only to end here? Like this?

  Give up your fight, the cold whispers. Its breath is shards of glass against my face. I don’t need to peel your skin back to claim everything inside you—even what you’ve borrowed—as my own. I will take it now.

  There’s nothing left to do but make peace with the cold: the icy teeth tearing at my skin, the thin air starving my lungs, the cruel chemistry slowing down my blood to a thick sludge.

  The cold whispers one last time. Hush, child. There are worse ways to die.

  II

  The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.

  —The Doors

  14

  I’m floating. Dead man’s float, face in water, limbs splayed. Bullet-size fish dart around beneath me, fronds of crinkle-cut pondweed stretching up from the pale sandy bottom. The water is air or the air is water and the distinction doesn’t matter—I relax.

  The peace bubble bursts when the fish, or the pondweed, or the grains of sand start talking. No … yelling.

  “Why won’t you wake up?”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Wake the fuck up!”

  Something smacks my chest. Over and over and over. Squinting, I peer into the depths below me. Nothing. No mutant giant fish whacking me with a meaty fin, but the thud-thud-thudding on my sternum keeps on.

  “Dude, she’s a popsicle. Let’s clear out.”

  “Are you kidding me? If Nicola finds a girl who died on my watch, I might as well be dead too.”

  It’s one of those dreams where you know you’re dreaming so who cares if it doesn’t go how you want. But damn, the punching and the yelling are starting to annoy the shit out of me. I try to wake up. Fail. I try to swim away from the smacking and the voices. Fail. My arms and legs are as boneless as the pondweed. More thuds against my middle as I start to sink.

  “I’m outta here. I don’t have a record, remember?”

  “Hide the stuff at least. Jesus.”

  The water’s slick as blood. But it’s gone cold. The shivering clacks the teeth in my head.

  “Hide it where?”

  “I don’t know. Stick it in an oven for now.”

  “If she’s dead she ain’t gonna see it anyway.”

  I lean shoulder and hip into the water and manage to roll belly up. I’m losing breath now. Where are the hospitable dream rules? Water fills my mouth, my lungs. Thud, thud, thud.

  “Will you shut up? I can’t concentrate!”

  “How do you know you’re not making her more dead?”

  I arch my back, tilt my chin, raise my knees. My pelvis breaks the surface first. Then my face. I gasp as water rushes out of my mouth and air rushes in. My eyes snap open.

  No fish. No pondweed. No water.

  A guy kneeling over me. Spiky hair, construction-cone orange. Sweating. A face full of lines and angles. Even the Adam’s apple protruding from his skinny neck is sharp. The heels of his stacked hands dig into my chest. I try to scream, but it comes out soundless. A fish gasp. He cuts his bloodshot eyes to mine. Surprise sharpens his face further.

  “Aw, yeah!” he yells, then leans back.

  Another voice from somewhere behind me. “Props, dude.”

  “What the fuck?” My voice is reedy, waterlogged. I aim a fist at the guy near me. I miss by a mile. My arm is too loose.

  He hops to his feet. “Whoa, take it easy! Need to come out of a trip nice ’n slow.”

  I curl myself away from him to protect my soft spots, my sore chest. Where the hell am I? There’s another guy in the room. A big guy. “Who are you?” I finally say, but neither of them seems to hear.

  “Dude,” the big guy says to spiky hair. “That’s some hard-core EMT shit; I thought she was a goner. Where’d you learn to do that?”

  I pat my torso, my legs. I’m fully clothed. Mentally, I scan my body. Between my legs. Nothing. I’m cold as hell, but otherwise, nothing hurts. Except my chest.

  “What do you want from me?” I ask. The wiry guy turns back to me. My scalp prickles, my throat goes tight.

  “How about ‘Thank you, Leo’?” he says.

  I heave myself up onto my knees. Then my feet. Waves of dizziness almost push me back down. I clench my jaw ’til the waves smooth out. I’m clammy, nauseous as hell, wobbly, but at least I’m upright.

  Where am I?

  “What did you do to me?” I ask.

  “I fucking saved your life,” Leo says.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s not a mystery. You pass out in a freezer, you end up an ice cube.” He scratches an arm sleeved in blurry tattoos.

  “Freezer? Huh?”

  “Is she always like this?” the bruiser asks Leo. He gropes his jean jacket, takes out a pack of cigarettes.

  “You mean like an ungrateful bee-atch?” And then, in a less indignant tone, “You can’t smoke in here.”


  My thoughts are jagged and tumbling, the inside of my head a busted kaleidoscope. I’m on my feet. I back away from Leo. I’m in a kitchen. Like an industrial kitchen with an endless shiny counter and bathtub-sized sinks and nested pots and pans hanging from the ceiling like bats in a cave. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Leo tilts his head back and laughs hard. He’s got awful teeth. “No kidding, huh? We’re playing that game now?”

  “You roofied me?”

  Tossing his cigarettes up and catching them, the other dude snorts. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  Maybe I roofied myself. How much did I drink? How much did I smoke? Everything’s murky, like a waterlogged notebook. I can see that something was written across the pages, but I can’t read the words.

  The last thing I remember is me and Tyler at the lake. “Where’s Tyler?”

  I get nothing but blank looks in return.

  Tyler gave me some amazing weed. He was mad about something, though. What was it? I can picture his mouth moving, the sharp talons appearing between his brows, the anger broadening his shoulders. The memory scratches at me and scuttles away.

  “Cupcake, did you have to make such a mess?” Leo says, opening the door to a giant fridge.

  There’s stuff strewn all over the floor in there. Breads and meats and cheeses. Broken glass.

  “Hello?” he says, as if he’s knocking on my head. “Why’d you have to go all Hulk on the food?”

  “I did that?” I say.

  “Uh, yeah, ya did. You were alone in there when I found you. Had to drag your sorry ass out.”

  “Okay, I don’t know what you did to mess me up—”

  “No good deed whatever whatever,” the big guy says. He’s leaning against a massive oven and phone-scrolling. “Told ya.”

  My head is killing me. I want to scream. I want to crawl out of this wormhole script I’ve fallen into.

  Leo: Look, Linnea …

  Me: Who the fuck is Linnea?

  Bruiser: That’s her name?

  Leo: Yep.

  Me: Not true!

  Bruiser: The little lady must be trippin’ on something fierce. I want me some of that.

  Me: Stop talking about me like I’m not here!

  I stand as straight as I can. Shove my shoulders back. “If you don’t tell me what happened, I’m calling the cops.”

  The big guy groans. “Goddamn, Leo, I told you you shoulda left her in there!”

  “Listen,” Leo says to me. “I’m not fucking with you. You work here. At the restaurant.” He pauses, searches my face. “Are you saying you don’t know that?”

  “You’re bullshitting me.”

  “Christ, it’s the truth. I went into the freezer and there you were. Fucking blue. No pulse. I’ve been around, okay, know how to try things in … emergencies. That’s it. That’s everything I know. The latch is busted. You musta got stuck in there and passed out. Or hit your head.”

  There’s something about the pitch of his voice, about the way he doesn’t break eye contact while he says all this. Something that makes me believe that he believes that’s what happened. Maybe the weed was laced with something so that Tyler and I ended up in a restaurant and I ended up in a freezer?

  “Amnesia,” the big guy says.

  “No shit,” Leo says to him. And then to me: “I take it you don’t remember Nicola?”

  “No clue.”

  “So if I ask you not to mention any of this to her, mention seeing me in the kitchen with … uh … a friend after hours, you won’t have a problem with that?” He bites his thumbnail. He can’t stay still.

  “Dude, if you really did save my life, then thank you, but I’m never gonna see you again, so not mentioning tonight’ll be easy.”

  His bulgy eyes reveal his confusion, but then he relaxes into a shrug. “It’s your life. Exit’s thataway.” He points over my shoulder.

  My legs still shaky, adrenaline pushes me forward. I slam into the door. It’s locked, throws me back. As I unlock the deadbolt I hear the friend ask Leo, in a loud whisper, if he really trusts me not to talk. Then I properly slam through to the outside. The night is still muggy and warm. But I’m freezing. I start walking. I can’t explain where I woke up, but the world is the same. There’s the Thirsty Nickel across the street. The Bat Bar. The Mooseknuckle Pub. The Voodoo Room. The Chuggin’ Monkey. I’m on Dirty Sixth. Not the best place to be after the crowds go home. The sidewalks are nearly empty, the bars are closed. Okay, okay. Breathe. Breathe. I can fill the hole of lost time later. Maybe I am caught in a bad trip. I need to get home. Everything’ll make sense once I get home.

  I pat my pockets for my phone. Find paper (not cash). Keys. That’s it. I don’t remember seeing my stuff, but I’m not going back to look. They might change their minds about trusting me to keep quiet. I’m a couple of blocks away by now, my breathing a little more steady. I realize I’m wearing clothes I don’t recognize. My body goes cold again. Did those guys do something? And then put me in the wrong clothes? Or did Tyler and I end up at a party like the one I went to a few months ago where we all thought it was funny to pool our clothes at the start of the night and then get randomly assigned pieces like we lived in a commune?

  “Excuse me?” I say to a couple walking my way. She’s smiling at something he says. They stop.

  “Whassup?” the girl says.

  “I had my purse stolen,” I say. “My phone, my money.”

  “Sucks,” the guy says, slurry.

  “You want us to call the cops for you?” she asks.

  “I just need to get home. Can I use your phone?” They don’t seem ready to hand anything over. “You could call for me.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” the guy says, drawing his phone out of his back pocket.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  He squints at his phone. “Four-oh-seven.”

  Shit. I can’t wake Max or Mom. And it’s way too far for me to walk. I can’t call Ezra. I lied about where I’d be tonight.

  “You okay?” the girl asks.

  “Can you get me an Uber?”

  The girlfriend nods. “You in Austin?” I nod. “Okay, then, it’s on us,” she says. The boyfriend rolls his eyes, but in the kind of way that says he goes along with her because he loves her.

  “Thank you,” I say. “You saved my life.”

  I wonder if my life’s been saved for the second time tonight.

  15

  MAXINE

  Miraculously, I down enough coffee to send my hangover to the time-out chair so I can get the boys up and moving.

  “We’re gonna make volcanoes today, Max!” Race says as I search the medicine chest for Advil. I shove aside Calamine lotion, bacitracin, Mom’s one-year-old Valium prescription. One lone pill bounces around the past-expiration bottle that for some reason I can’t bring myself to throw away.

  “Max! We’re gonna do volcanoes!”

  “I know it was in here,” I mutter, seeing the blue label promising pain relief only in my mind’s eye.

  “Max!” Race says. “How come you can’t hear me?” And this time he pats me to get my attention. Right on my freshly needled hip.

  “Ow!” I yelp too loudly.

  He backs away. “Sorry, Max,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean it.” I turn to him. “Oh, honey, it’s not your fault. I have a … bruise there. You didn’t know.”

  “Do you need to go to the doctor?” His eyes are wide.

  “No, sweetheart. It’s fine, it’s just a little tender.”

  I spot the Advil on the edge of the sink. So I can add dementia to the list.

  I manage to get my brothers to science camp at the rec center then drive back to an empty, lonely house. Chris texts me. And then Ezra. Both acknowledging what day it is. That they’re thinking of me. If Ezra is mad about last night, he doesn’t mention it. But I didn’t do anything more than make a choice.

  I stack the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, wipe down the table, find a Pop-T
art corner on the floor. A dog would take care of that. Harper was allergic. I guess we could get one now. The boys would love that, springing some silly flop-eared mutt from the shelter. I’m not sure I can be responsible for one more living thing though.

  I decide to wash the kitchen floor. Maybe if I keep my body moving I can keep my thoughts quiet. I lug the bucket out from under the sink, squirt some soap in, fill it with water, plunge the mop in.

  The night Harper was busy drowning at the lake, I was busy borrowing Harper’s life and pretending I wouldn’t have to give it back.

  While I loaded the dishwasher, Ezra read the boys a bedtime story. Mom was meeting some friends from work for a late dinner and drinks. And Harper was out. She’d forgotten she and Ezra had planned to go to under-21 night at Cap City Comedy Club. She texted him a made-up story about needing to console a friend whose boyfriend had abruptly dumped her. Take Max, she suggested.

  Take Max.

  Of course I would’ve jumped at the chance if I hadn’t promised Mom I’d babysit. And I’m sure Ezra could’ve found a guy friend to go with, but he said, “If it’s okay with you, I’ll just hang out here?” And that’s when the pretending started.

  “Hey,” I said once I snapped the dishwasher shut and got the cycle going, “you want a Topo Chico? I think there’s guac left, too. And chips.”

  “I know,” he said, “I’ll make you my famous hot cocoa.”

  I laughed. “It was eighty-eight degrees today.”

  He waved that away. “It’s a myth that drinking cold stuff on a hot day cools you off.

  It’s the opposite.”

  “Well, then, I suppose I should see why your cocoa is famous.”

  He moved into the narrow space between the fridge and the island before I could move out. So we stood there, maybe two inches apart, in this hushed house with my sister God knows where and my heart racing. It meant nothing to him—I was just his GF’s li’l sister, he’d known me for years by then—but it meant something to me.

  He looked down at me. Blinked. Breathed. Neither of us said anything for a few seconds while the dishwasher sloshed in the background.