Before I could figure out what I was supposed to say to her, she gave a little ticktock wave of one hand and said, "Hi, Charlie." Her warm voice was low and uncertain, but it seemed to bring some light and heat into that empty, dusty, drafty, deeply shadowed room.
I licked the nervous dryness off my lips before I answered her. "Hey, Beth," I said as casually as I could. "It's good to see you."
Rick cleared his throat. I'd forgotten he was there. I'd forgotten all the guys were there.
"Well, uh…" Rick said.
"Yeah," said Miler. "We gotta… uh…"
"Right," said Josh. "We got a lot of things we have to… uh…"
"Exactly," said Rick.
They bumped into one another as they all started moving at once. They gathered up their sleeping bags and their litter-all except one bag and one flashlight. They left those for me. Then they headed quickly for the door.
Beth smiled to herself and looked down at the floor. She came into the room and stepped aside so the guys could get past her.
Josh was the last one out. Just as he was leaving, he turned back to me and said, "What we're gonna do: we're gonna go get some stuff. Stuff that'll help. I got all these good ideas for how we can start to find out…"
Rick grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him out of the room.
Beth and I stood silently, each avoiding the other's gaze. We listened as the guys' footsteps thumped down the stairs. We heard the door down there open and thud shut. Then we were alone.
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came to me. We went on standing there a long time.
Finally, Beth gave me a nervous smile. She moved past me over to the window. She set her carryall down on the floor. She put her hands in the pockets of her coat and shivered.
"It's really chilly in here."
"Yeah," I said. "The window…" I gestured lamely at the broken pane.
She seemed then to come toward me almost by accident, as if she was just wandering around the room, you know, and just happened to find herself standing right in front of me. Then she was close, looking up at me, her eyes on mine. She went up on tiptoe and kissed me.
It was just a quick kiss, quick and soft, but it made the warm, empty feeling flood through me again.
"Hi, Charlie," she repeated. It was almost a whisper this time.
"Hi," I just managed to say.
"I know you don't remember. But I remember."
Then, as if she had embarrassed herself, her cheeks turned red and she moved away.
"I brought you some food," she said quickly.
"Oh, hey, that's really nice."
"It's just some sandwiches and an apple. A couple of bottles of water. But I figured the guys wouldn't think of it or they'd just bring you chips or Pop-Tarts or something."
"Yeah." I gestured lamely again-this time at the empty soda bottles lying on the floor.
"You hungry?" she asked me.
I nodded. I was really touched she'd thought to bring me something. "I'm pretty much always hungry," I said.
She went back to her bag. Crouched down over it. She pulled out a plaid blanket and handed it to me. "So we don't have to sit in all this dust."
"Right."
I spread the blanket out on the floor. She went into her carryall again, meanwhile, and brought out sandwiches and apples and grapes, all neatly stored in plastic bags, plus some bottles of water.
We sat on the blanket together. The sight of the sandwiches made my mouth water. It had been days since I'd eaten anything decent, anything that hadn't come from a vending machine. Also, I was glad to have something to do, you know, something to look at besides her, something to occupy me so I wouldn't have to think of more stuff to say.
I ripped into the first sandwich-chicken and cheese with mayo on a fresh roll. The taste of it-all the freshness of it and the flavor-was pretty shocking after so many weeks of scrounging for whatever I could find. The sandwich seemed practically to explode in my mouth and the taste traveled all through me.
"Good," I said with my mouth full. "Really good. Really."
She smiled. She sat there and watched me eat. It felt like she was practically studying my face. When I stole glances at her, I could see her eyes glistening in the daylight that came in through the window. It made me feel funny to have her look at me that way-you know, as if she had been wanting to see me for a long time and now that I was here, she couldn't take her eyes off me. It made me feel good. In fact, I had to keep from getting a stupid-looking smile on my face. I forced it down, but it kept coming back. I finally hid it with another bite of the sandwich.
"Has it been terrible?" Beth said finally.
"Has what been terrible?"
"You know, having to run away all the time. Is it really bad?"
I shrugged. It had been a long time since anyone had asked me a question like that-a question about how I was feeling. Used to be, I'd hear it every day, practically every hour. I'd wake up and my mom would say, "How'd you sleep?" I'd go to school and my friends would say, "How's it going?" At night, at dinner, my dad would say, "How was school?" Sometimes it could even feel annoying, you know-like why does everybody have to ask me questions all the time?
But when it stops, when nobody asks-when nobody cares how your day was or how you slept or how it's going for you-then you miss it, I can tell you. You miss it a lot.
So when Beth asked, I suddenly wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to try to explain to her how it felt to have everything you cared about and loved suddenly vanish. I wanted to tell her what it was like to be on the road, hunted, day and night, with nowhere you could call home. I wanted her to know what it did to you to have the world think you were evil and to wonder sometimes yourself whether you were or not.
I wanted to tell her-but I couldn't find the words.
"I don't know," I said finally. "It's kind of lonely sometimes."
She nodded. "I think it must be. Must be scary too."
I shrugged again. She was right, of course. It was scary. It was scary all the time, every minute. But I didn't like to tell her that. "I guess," I said. "I guess it's kind of scary sometimes."
"I'd be scared," she said. "I'd be scared all the time. I am scared all the time."
"You are? Why? What are you scared about?"
"I'm scared for you, Charlie," she said, in a tone of voice that suggested it had maybe been kind of a stupid question. "I mean, I try not to think about it, but I can't help it. I think of you out there all alone with the police after you and I get so worried I…" Her eyes glistened even more. She didn't finish.
I tried to think of the right thing to say. "Don't be scared," was all I could come up with. "I mean, here I am, right? I'm okay. I'm gonna be okay."
"I know," she said hoarsely, trying to smile. "I know you are."
"I'm sorry, Beth. I'm sorry you have to worry like that."
She shook her head. "It's not your fault."
"I don't know whether it is or not."
"It's not."
"Maybe… but I'm sorry anyway. I'm sorry you have to worry. I'm sorry I can't be here to… you know, to keep you from worrying and make you feel better. And you know what I'm sorry about more than anything?"
She shook her head. She couldn't speak. She was trying too hard not to cry.
I told her, "I'm sorry I can't remember. Us, you know. I'm sorry I can't remember us."
She nodded. She managed to get the words out. "So am I. A lot."
"I try to. I try so hard. It's really frustrating. Sometimes it feels like… it's all still there, inside my brain, just out of reach. Like when you can't remember a word or the name of a song or something, but it's right on the tip of your tongue. It feels like that. And then sometimes… sometimes I have dreams. You know? Dreams about you and me. Just you and me walking together or talking or something. And then I wake up and… I don't know whether I was remembering something that really happened or if it was just a dream."
"That does
sound frustrating."
"Yeah. Yeah, it is."
Talking to Beth was kind of an amazing thing. The way she listened to you-it made you feel like you were the only person in the world, the only thing she was interested in or really cared about. I mean, I didn't want to complain too much. Mostly I didn't want to say anything that would make her worry even more than she already did. But it sure felt good to say these things to her, to tell her about all these things I'd been keeping inside me during all the weeks when I had no one to talk to.
"It's like that with a lot of stuff," I said. "All the stuff I can't remember. A whole year-it's just gone. Not just you and me but… how I got arrested. My trial. I can't even remember…"
The words stuck in my throat. Beth reached out and touched my hand gently. "What, Charlie?"
"I can't even remember if I'm guilty or not."
"What do you mean?"
"Alex. I can't even remember if I killed him."
"Oh, Charlie." Her hand closed over mine. "Of course you didn't. I know that. We all do."
Man, I have to say: it was hard not to cry when she said that. I would've rather the Homelanders stormed into the room just then and shot me dead before I let Beth see me cry, but it was hard not to. For a long time, I couldn't say anything at all.
Finally, I forced the words out. "The police… The jury… They all think I did it."
"Well, they're wrong, that's all. They've made a terrible mistake. I'm sure they didn't mean to. They were trying to get it right, but somehow things just got mixed up."
"And now there are these people. These terrorists. They think I'm one of them."
"Oh, Charlie, you have to know that's not true."
"I want to. I want to know it, Beth. So help me, I want to know it more than anything. I mean, I'm not trying to say I'm anybody special or Superman or anything like that, but… I always thought I was all right. You know? I thought I was a decent guy…"
"You are. Of course you are. You're more than that."
"Then why do they all…?" I lifted the last of the sandwich, but I didn't eat it. I couldn't. My throat felt so tight I knew I wouldn't be able to get it down. "I try to figure it out, but I can't. You know? It doesn't make any sense. If I'm really innocent, why would everyone say I was guilty? I feel like, if I could just remember what happened…"
"You will. You just have to keep trying. I'm sure you will."
I put the sandwich down. I reached into my fleece and brought out the papers I'd got in the library.
"It's why I came back. To see if I could piece it all together and figure it out. I mean, if I didn't kill Alex, someone else must've done it, right? The paper said it was someone he recognized, someone he knew. If it wasn't me, then who was it?"
She took the papers from me. She paged through them silently for a few moments. As she did, the tears welled in her eyes again. One tear spilled over and ran down her cheek. I could feel it-that tear. I felt it like a punch. I reached out with one finger and brushed it off her.
"Don't cry," I said.
"It was just… it was so awful. The trial and everything."
"You were there?"
"Every day, whenever I could be. And afterward, I'd come to your house… It was just getting started between us and… they took you away from me."
An eagerness rose in me. It shot up like a flame. "Tell me," I said to her. "Tell me… the whole thing. The arrest, the trial and… and us. Tell me about us, Beth. Please. I need to know. Tell me about us."
And she did.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Love and Death Of all the strange things that had been happening to me, I don't think anything felt quite so bizarre as having Beth tell me the story of my own life-that crucial part of it anyway, when I had both fallen in love and been convicted of murder. I had told her everything at the time, of course, so she knew pretty much the whole chain of events. And to have her telling me things about myself- really personal important things-that I didn't know was, like… well, it was very, very weird.
This is what she said had happened after the night Alex was murdered, after the last day I could remember.
The news of Alex's stabbing flashed through the town like lightning. Phones started ringing everywhere first thing in the morning. Everyone knew about it even before the newspaper arrived with the story on the front page.
The second I heard the news, Beth said, I knew I had to go to the police. I knew I must've been one of the last people to see Alex alive.
My dad called the police for me. Then he and I went to the station together. I guess that was the first time I met Detective Rose.
We went into an interrogation room, a small dingy room with dirty white soundproofing on the walls and a video camera hanging up in one corner of the ceiling so other policemen could watch you being questioned on a TV in another room. My dad was with me the whole time, but still, it made me nervous to be questioned by a police detective. Whenever you see people getting questioned by detectives on TV, there's always a lot of yelling and a lot of times the guy being questioned gets taken away in handcuffs. Even though it was nothing like that in real life, it was still pretty tense. Plus, Detective Rose wasn't exactly what you'd call the most relaxing person to talk to.
He was on the short side but trim and fit as if he went to the gym a lot. He was black, with a round face and a thin mustache. He had short hair and a receding hairline. His features looked like someone had pushed them flat. But the features that really caught your attention were his eyes. His eyes were cold and smart. They watched you and took in everything. Detective Rose always gave you the feeling that he knew everything you'd done and everything you were thinking.
Even then, even at the very start, I could see there were a lot of reasons for Detective Rose to be suspicious of me. I could see that he might even think I had killed Alex. Alex and I had argued-there were witnesses who had seen us and heard us. And Alex had obviously known the person who approached him in the park. Then there was the fact that Alex had died gasping out my name: "Charlie… Charlie…"
So, sure, all of that put together made me nervous. Nervous-but not scared. I wasn't scared because I knew I hadn't done anything wrong.
I told Rose what happened, the whole story about Alex and me. He asked me questions and I answered them. When he was done, he asked me to give him the clothes I was wearing the night before. I said sure. He asked for a sample of my DN A. I said sure again. Some guy came in and took some spit out of my mouth with a cotton swab. Finally Detective Rose asked if I'd take a lie detector test and I said another sure and I did.
A couple of days later, Rose came by my house. He acted differently this time. His eyes stayed cool and watchful, but he smiled more. He talked to my father in a friendly voice.
He told my dad that there was nothing to worry about. It would be weeks before all the tests came back, the DN A and everything. But I had passed the lie detector test with flying colors and, he said, he was willing to "stake his reputation as a detective" on the fact that I hadn't killed Alex.
Well, again (this is what Beth told me that I told her), I wasn't scared, but it was a relief to be off the list of suspects.
All the same, I was still pretty down about Alex. Everyone was. We had an assembly at school to talk about him. Mr. Woodman, the principal, who usually couldn't put two sentences together without stumbling over his own tongue, suddenly became almost eloquent, talking about Alex's life and how we would never know what he could have made of it. There was no clowning around in the auditorium while he spoke, the way there usually was. Everyone just sat there, looking grim. A lot of the girls were crying.
Sometime later that week, I phoned Beth. She had given me her number and I'd said I was going to call, so I did. Originally, I'd been going to ask her out. But we talked about it and, after the murder and everything, it didn't seem right somehow to just go out to a movie or something. So we decided we would take a walk together instead and talk about things.
That Saturday, I met Beth down by the Spring River. There's a really nice path there that goes along the river and through a birch tree forest. There's a lane for bikes, but most of it is just for walking. We went in the morning before the path got crowded. In early autumn the birch leaves turn this really beautiful orange-yellow and the sun was shining through them so that they looked almost like fire against the blue of the sky. We walked under them side by side.
"It's messed up about Alex," I said.
"It's really messed up," said Beth. "It must be kind of weird for you to be one of the last people who saw him."
"Yeah, it kind of is. I feel bad because we ended up arguing. Now I'll never get to make it good."
I told her all about what happened. I told her about the police questioning me and so on.
"I still can't believe it."
"I went by his house yesterday to visit his mother," Beth said. "I never saw anyone look like she did. She looked like she was the one who died. I mean, first her husband leaves and now…"
"It was nice of you to go over there."
"Alex and I got to be friends last summer. I knew he'd been having a lot of troubles since his dad left and… Well, the way he was acting, I couldn't go on seeing him, you know. But deep down, he was a good person. I wish we could've helped him somehow."
"Me too. I always figured he'd straighten himself out, you know. You never figure someone that young is just going to run out of time."
"Do you think they'll catch the person who did it?"
"Oh yeah. Sure they will. I mean, it's probably not that big a mystery. Alex was getting in with some bad kids at his school, getting into some bad stuff. Drinking, hanging out. I'm sure there were drugs too."
"I know there were," said Beth.
"The police probably know about all those people already. They just have to find the right one."
I sounded very sure of it, Beth told me. But, in fact, the police investigation went on for weeks and there were no suspects. And life went on too. And, after a while, people didn't talk about the murder all the time and they didn't feel sad all the time. Alex and his death sort of faded into the background.
The long way home h-2 Page 9