Finding Hope

by Colleen Nelson

  If I wasn’t around to look after her, how long would she survive? She could get hit by a car or get picked up by the pound. Maybe it was kinder to end things for her now.

  I held her against me, resting my head on her delicate skull. I unclipped the leash from her collar. It would be over quickly. I’d wade out and hold her under, let her body float out into the lake.

  But then she squirmed in my arms and looked at me. Her eyes deep brown, like maple syrup.

  Voices rang out across the lake. Kids playing, their heads bouncing above the fence on a trampoline. Flying. Weightless for a nanosecond. I had forgotten what that felt like. I stood up, holding Storm close, the warmth of her protecting me from the searing pain in my chest.

  Hope

  Devilish thoughts

  Turn black

  Decay

  Charred remains

  Of what was loved

  Now lie dead.

  I’d avoided his stupid list. Leaving it in my desk drawer so I wouldn’t have to look at it, but too mad to throw it away. Why did I think I could count on him? All he did was let me down. I should call Mom, let her call the cops or come to the city. It would serve him right.

  But all those thoughts got mixed up with the shame I felt about the pictures; how eager I was to believe “Devon” loved me. A blurry mess. I couldn’t keep straight who I hated more: Lizzie and the Ravens for their cruelty, Eric for his addiction, or myself for falling victim to their tricks.

  I caught my reflection in the mirror. Like a hunted animal, my eyes wide and anxious, shoulders hunched to my ears. After a few minutes, I took a deep breath.

  Hiking up my skirt, I grabbed a marker. The skin on my inner thigh was pale. Innocent.

  With a black heart

  Hiding

  One prick to pierce

  Your lies.

  You sizzle in your own flame.

  I put the cap back on the marker and stared at what I’d written. Shockingly dark, it would be a reminder. And a promise.

  Some chickadees, small and round, flitted from branch to branch in the tree at my window, chirping in a high-pitched singsong. The blackbird hadn’t been by in days. Maybe the little birds had kicked him out.

  I took Eric’s list out of my drawer and stared at it. Folded so many times, the creases were furry. His printing, in dull pencil, was loopy and unformed. Kind of like Eric.

  *MATCHES* (Leo has TIN in kitchen—take some!!!!)

  Rags, dishtowels, sheets???? Ask Hope!

  Gasoline (take old container from behind house and fill up at gas station. Save MONEY. Make sure I have enough!!!!)

  Bottles. EASY to get! Look in garbage, recycling bins! Get 5!!! Or more!

  MAP—how to get there? How to get there? How to get there? 314 Blossom Bay!!!!

  Has to be nighttime when he’s sleeping! Must be HOME! Otherwise, no point.

  I stared at his words. His hockey coach’s address? None of it made sense. Matches and gasoline? What was he going to do, burn down a house? And what did it have to do with Coach Williams?

  What was going on in his twisted, junkie brain? I turned the paper over. On the back, You get what you deserve, written over and over, like a mantra.

  He’d put it on me, again. I had to sort out what he was going to do and save him from himself.

  It was almost six o’clock. The sun was setting, burning the sky orange and red. He’d abandoned me yesterday, when I had been counting on him. Was it because he was high somewhere, too blitzed on meth to remember his promise?

  I hate you, Eric. A surge of anger rushed through me. He deserved to be locked up. His plan didn’t make sense to me. Gasoline, bottles, Coach Williams: the ravings of a crazy person. But the fear of what he’d do, to himself, to someone else, was always in the back of my mind. What if he hurt an innocent person? I looked at the paper again. At the intensity of the words, written in capitals and underlined. Whatever his plan was, to his meth-addled mind, it made sense.

  He’d need money to buy gasoline, I reasoned. And he hadn’t asked for any. I thought back to the other night, plucking at strands of our conversation. Why hadn’t he asked for any?

  He’d been jumping around, frenetic, in a T-shirt, while I’d been shivering in the October air. His jacket. The one I’d left for him in Lumsville had been sold, pawned, probably, for half its value. Months of babysitting money wasted on a gift that wasn’t as special as a few hits of meth. Or a misguided revenge plot.

  My head throbbed, the ache starting at the base of my spine with the realization that I should have called Mom weeks ago, when Eric first showed up. I’d thought I could do it on my own, that some sibling magnetism would pull him to me. But I’d failed.

  I stared at his coach’s address. I’d given it to Eric, planted the seed in his head. Had the meth helped it bloom? Vines of ideas taking over his brain, strangling reason with their tendrils? His writing might be nothing, just the lunatic scribblings of a meth-head.

  Or not. They could be real.

  A hot rush of panic filled me and I picked up my phone. I couldn’t fix Eric. But I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else, either.

  Please be home, I whispered. And then another thought: Please don’t let it be too late.

  Eric

  The glass bottles clinked in the bag, heavy with gasoline. Vapours rose around me, giving me a headache. No back lanes in this neighborhood, so I huddled in the shadows between houses.

  I had to do this. I had to send a message that he couldn’t get away with what he’d done to me. No deed goes unpunished. You get what you deserve.

  Would we be even after this? Would I magically be healed, give up the meth? I knew I wouldn’t. I still wanted it. Even now, sitting crouched by a basement window well, I wanted some crystal so bad my body crawled with the need of it.

  Would the fire fill me up? Watching it blaze, would it burn inside of me too, scorching me into cinders? I already felt like ash, ready to blow away, dust on the wind. Maybe I should walk into it. Burn with him. Maybe that’s where I belonged: with my dad and Coach Williams.

  Maybe we were all versions of the same shitty person, just waiting for hell to take us.

  Hope

  I stared at the poem on my leg. My head buzzed with unshed words. I needed my journal, but it wasn’t in my nightstand drawer, or under my pillow, or anywhere else I usually left it. Opening all the drawers of my desk, I floundered around trying to remember when I’d last had it. Had I brought it to study hall? Stuffed it into my binder? How could I have lost it? I went through my pile of textbooks, lifting up each one to see if it had gotten trapped underneath.

  A picture of unearthly, peachy skin sat tucked between the books. It was another picture of me, one of the ones I’d sent to Devon. The pendant held up to my lips. My eyes, disgustingly wanting. So much flesh exposed.

  Seeing myself like that, the shock of another photo waiting for me, made me stumble backwards. I held the paper in my hand and collapsed onto my bed. How had it gotten there? In study hall? Or had Lizzie been in my room?

  Were there other photos? Hidden, lying in wait until I found them? Like a carnival funhouse, the ghouls would pop up. An uninvited reminder of what I’d done.

  My journal forgotten, I got up and opened dresser drawers, rifling through my clothes, tossing them to the ground. Where would other pictures be? Under my mattress? In my desk? I tore through everywhere, dumping books off shelves and the contents of desk drawers on the floor.

  When I was done, my room looked like a hurricane had come through. My mattress was tipped over; clothes, books, papers strewn across the floor. I’d stripped off my hoodie, too heavy for strenuous work, and my hair hung in a straggly mess around my face. A bottle of painkillers from my toiletries bag rolled on the floor at my feet.

  Pills rattled inside when I picked it up, fingering the ridges on the c
ap. I unscrewed it. With a shaking hand, the pills tumbled into my hand. Nestled in my palm, I counted twenty-two dots of chalky white. Would that be enough?

  There was laughter outside the door. Girls in the hallway, the common room; they were everywhere, pressing from all sides, unavoidable.

  A strangled scream lodged itself in my throat. What would they do if they found me in here, amidst the chaos I’d created? I glanced at the lock on the door, the button pressed in; all that protected me from the Ravens outside. The empty bottle in one hand, the pills in the other. If I popped them into my mouth, what then? Float away, my head like helium, wispy and free? No more pictures, no more Ravens, no more humiliation. No more being alone. No more hurt. I could escape. Maybe taking these pills was the only way out.

  I put all the pills in at once, forcing my dry mouth to swallow them, my throat to contract as I pushed them down. The pills lodged in my esophagus, saliva dissolving them, their molecules slipping into my blood.

  I waited. Shut my eyes and thought of Mom. She’d arrive, and then what? Come to my room to get me. See this. My eyes flew open. I staggered back—not from the pills but from the weight of what I’d done.

  Rushing to the garbage can, I put my finger down my throat. I gagged, and the pills came up in a mass of bubbly spit.

  I crouched on the floor, breathing hard. What was I doing? I couldn’t let the Ravens win, not like this. I needed air. Wrenching the window open, I was hit by a blast of October air. It lifted the suffocating weight of the room. I gulped the air in. A bird’s squawk startled me. Sitting on the branch beside my window, the blackbird had returned. It opened its beak again and cawed at me. I took a step back and it flew to the sill. Large, with greasy feathers, the crow’s yellow eyes stared at me.

  Black beak

  Quick tap

  Flesh supple, like ripe fruit.

  Talons dig into my skin,

  Gripping and sinking.

  Peck viciously, madly

  Until my eye is an empty socket.

  Eric’s plan lay on the desk in front of me. His insistent scrawl a scream. The bird tilted its head at me.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I gripped the edge of the desk and took deep breaths. The room spun and I sank down to the floor, holding my head in my hands. What if I didn’t go to him? What if I just let things happen? What then?

  From outside my door, I heard a squawk—only it wasn’t a bird, it was a Raven.

  The one on the windowsill answered. Lifted its head and opened its beak with a caw. I wished it would fly inside the room. I glared at it, imagining what I would do if I had it in my hands.

  Skull between my fingers,

  I mash.

  Beak cracks, splinters

  A mass of feathers

  Falls to the floor.

  I press it flat,

  Raven dust

  Trailing under the door

  Like smoke.

  It disappears.

  I wasn’t going to be another victim. I’d left Lumsville to find a place where I fit in, that made sense for me. To escape Eric. Going back meant giving up, resigning myself to the idea that this was all my life would be.

  I’d seen what giving up had done to Eric. One taste of meth and he’d let go. Everything that mattered to him had slipped through his fingers: family, hockey, friends. That wasn’t going to happen to me.

  “Go!” I yelled at the bird. It flew off in a mess of flapping feathers. I slammed the window shut and looked around my room. My computer sat on my desk, beside Eric’s plans, and under it, my journal. It had been there all along. I gave a sigh of relief.

  I knew what I was going to do. My plan was concrete in my head. Solid.

  Two could play at Lizzie’s game. She’d used my innocence against me. I’d use hers. She thought a computer brought her anonymity, but it didn’t. From the privacy of my dorm room, with my computer open in front of me, I’d make sure I didn’t go down without a fight.

  Eric

  He was inside. I watched him move around the house, his shadow behind the blinds, a glimpse of him going upstairs, picking up a little girl in pink pajamas.

  How long had I been sitting outside? Maybe if I stayed here, I’d sink into the ground and disappear. Decompose.

  I wished I’d gone to see Hope. She’d have talked me out of this. But now I was here. And completely fucking confused.

  He had a family. A wife and a kid.

  What was I? A weird bruise in his past that had faded. Or were there others? Was he still coaching? Maybe a whole string of boys were in line behind me, working up the guts to do what I wanted to do.

  I could write a letter and leave it where his wife would find it. Then she’d know what he really was. Take their kid and divorce him.

  Taking out one of the bottles, already stuffed with a ripped-up rag, the gasoline sloshing inside, I held it in my hands. How easy would it be to light it and throw it and then walk away?

  I wanted to hear him scream, terrified, like I had, the first time.

  See how it feels, Coach Williams.

  Hope

  My fingers trembled, racing to finish what I’d started. I had to find Eric, but first, I had to do this. I wasn’t leaving Ravenhurst like a hunted animal. In fact, I wasn’t leaving Ravenhurst at all.

  I’d tell them everything, show them the photos, let them read the emails and texts, lay all my secrets bare so they’d know the truth.

  Lizzie wouldn’t be able to hide anymore. And neither would I.

  A cluster of girls sat in the common room. I had to walk past them to make my way to the gates. It was night, late to be leaving the school.

  “Where are you going?” Lizzie asked, looking up from her phone. She gave me a wicked smile. “Going to meet your meth-head brother?”

  Any chatter in the room died with her words. I’d been waiting for her to unleash this final nail in my coffin. She’d known the truth about Eric since the first night I’d gone to her room, but only now, when she’d exhausted her arsenal of tricks, was she resorting to using it. I forced myself not to react and took a deep breath.

  “Or maybe you’re going to meet your boyfriend,” she said quietly, so only I could hear. “Devon.” Hearing his name on her lips, dripping with sarcasm, was like an ice pick through my heart. It took every ounce of self-control not to launch myself across the room at her.

  “You think you won, don’t you?” I truly wanted to know. Why was she like this? Manipulative and cruel, forcing people to dark places. She must have gotten some satisfaction from it.

  She just arched a condescending eyebrow and picked up her phone.

  “There should be an email in your inbox, Lizzie. I sent it to Ms. Harrison and copied you on it. A string of emails between me and Devon. All of them.” Her expression didn’t change. Nothing I said scared her.

  “So? Those emails have nothing to do with me.”

  I trembled, a hot flush spreading up my cheeks. Don’t back down. “I did some research. Whoever sent out those photos can be charged with distribution of pornography.” A flicker of concern flashed across her face. “There’s a whole team who can figure out the IP address of anyone who uses the Internet. Whoever did send the photos will be getting a visit from the police.”

  She gaped at me, speechless.

  “And yes, I am going to see my meth-head brother,” I whispered to her. “And then”—I leaned in close—“I’m coming back to Ravenhurst, because you don’t get to win.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder, my footsteps loud in the silent room. I met Cassie’s eyes, wide with shock, and gave her a jubilant smile.

  The security guard buzzed me out right away. Mom’s car was parked at the end of the driveway, blinding me with its headlights.

  Eric

  And then a car. A familiar car in unfamiliar surroundings. Out of context, it was like a
dream. Maybe I was imagining it.

  And then a voice. Someone was calling my name, shouting it across the street.

  It was Hope.

  They’d left. An hour ago, Coach Williams’ car had reversed out of the garage. His wife sat beside him in the front seat and, in the back, his little girl. I’d stood and watched, paralyzed. The car moved slowly, cautiously to the road. I could have called to him then, ran to the street, broken the months of silence. But I’d stood mute, frozen in the darkness between houses.

  I closed my eyes and felt Hope’s hand on my arm, squeezing. Tears rolled down my cheeks. And then a loud, low moan as I fell against her. She pried the plastic bag of Molotov cocktails out of my hand, like a mother coaxing a toy from a child.

  Tiny Hope, my body curled up against hers. Her bones felt as fragile as a bird’s, but still she was holding me up.

  “I couldn’t do it,” I sobbed. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

  She sat quietly, rubbing my back, like Mom used to do.

  “The fucked-up thing is, I wanted to see him. It felt good to see him.” My words were garbled, chewed up by emotion.

  “I called them,” she whispered. “I told them to leave. I didn’t know what you were going to do, or why.”

  I squeezed my hand into a fist and jammed it into the ground. The soil was packed down, solid under my knuckles, but there was give there, a release as the earth cracked under my weight.

  “He left,” I spat, shaking my head. “You see that?” I pointed at the house, now encased in darkness. “An innocent man would’ve stayed.”