by Teresa Hill
Zach and Julie never said it exactly, but I think they wanted the extra safety of that small-town connection, knowing all those people – like Sam knew the cop who brought me here tonight. When someone’s in trouble, it helps, being able to call someone you know, people who trust you who can help. Because we all thought eventually Mom would be trouble.
Plus, I started calming down, doing better in school, and Julie really liked her job doing PR for the Chamber of Commerce, and Dana …
Dana really wanted me to stay, for us to go to high school together. How could I resist that? Her excited about seeing me every day.
Sam found us a house, a wreck of a place. I spent the whole summer before high school working on it, along with Sam and Dana’s dad. Zach’s whole family pitched in. And we stayed, mostly because of me. I still feel guilty about that. I don’t blame Julie at all for not wanting to be here. I’m just grateful she did it, and that it worked out for her, that now she has Zach. But it’s not where she wanted to be.
“But Julie is your legal guardian, right?” Dana says.
“Yeah. For now.”
“You want to stay, don’t you?” Dana asks, sounding like she’d hate it if I was gone.
I don’t ever want to leave her, that’s for damned sure. I don’t want to change anything about my life now, except to somehow be able to be with her the way I want. Which I know is impossible. My life is impossible.
“Yeah, I want to stay,” I mutter.
“Then you will.” She says it like she believes it completely, like there’s no possibility of everything going to hell for me. That’s the way her life works, so of course, she believes that.
I shake my head, wondering how in the world our conversation turned into this. She gets things out of me no one else can, things I don’t want anyone to know.
“Julie knows what it’s like to live with your mom. She wouldn’t make anybody go back to that, right?” Dana asks.
I shrug and try not to look concerned at all. “I don’t know. She and Zach are still like newlyweds. I’m sure they’d like some privacy. Believe me, those two could use some privacy.”
“Wait … What?” She’s smiling now, which is what I want. I always want that for her. “You’re still walking in on them?”
“I’ve learned not to walk into the house at … unexpected times, without making a lot of noise and moving very slowly. Just in case. But, yeah, every now and then, they find some new, odd place to do it. You know, a place I didn’t think to be worried about walking into.”
She laughs. I think I’ve successfully distracted her from any serious conversation.
“So, where’s the strangest place you’ve caught them … doing it?” she asks.
“Laundry room,” I say. “I mean, what’s sexy about that?”
She giggles, and her cheeks get a little pink.
“One minute, you’re putting a load of laundry in the washer, and the next, you’re … tearing each other’s clothes off?” I shrug. “And their bedroom is right across the hall. Wouldn’t you just walk the ten feet to your bed, where there’s a door with a lock?”
“I have no idea,” she says.
For a minute after that, it’s like it’s always been. We’re friends, and I can tell her anything. We can laugh about anything. God, I miss this. I miss her so much, this girl I can’t have, and times like this with her that I can’t have anymore either.
“I need to go,” I say, pushing her away, because I can’t do this. It’s too hard. Too tempting.
I’m on my feet and on my way out of the bathroom door to head downstairs and see how bad it’s going to be, but she says, “Peter?
I turn around. The look on her face says she’s going to ask me. What happened? What changed? What did she do? It’s impossible. I hate that I hurt her like this. I hate it so much, and I can’t handle her asking me what went wrong between us.
“I need to get down there and see ... what they’re going to do to me,” I say.
Pretty bad when that sounds safer than being up here with her, but that’s where I am. Can’t stay here but don’t want to go down there.
* * *
Chapter Six
Dana
Downstairs, it’s just the men plus Julie and Gram standing around the big island in the kitchen talking quietly. It looks like everybody else, including the cop, is gone. I worry that my dad might hustle me out of here before I hear what’s going to happen to Peter, and there’s no way I’m letting that happen. Or letting Peter go … anywhere. I couldn’t stand it, and neither could he, from what he just let slip upstairs.
Luckily, my dad doesn’t try to make me leave. No one even pays attention to me. Zach pulls out one of the high stools we use when we’re eating at the breakfast bar and tells Peter, “Sit.”
On the counter between us is money. A bunch of money.
“Three hundred and sixty bucks, huh?” Zach asks Peter. “In one poker game?”
He shrugs, like it’s nothing. “There’s nothing illegal about it. We were playing cards. No big deal.”
“And you won three hundred and sixty dollars? You’re that good? Or that lucky?”
“I don’t cheat to take people’s money at cards, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Fine. What were you going to do with three hundred and sixty dollars?”
He shrugs again, doing his I-don’t-give-a-shit thing. “I’m seventeen. I’d like to have something to drive one day. Sam said he might sell me his old truck, the one he keeps to haul messy stuff around in.”
“Yeah, I did,” my granddad says. “But I thought you’d be working it off with me.”
“Sure. If you want,” Peter says.
Julie says, “The policeman said he talked to the guys you were playing with. They said you’ve sat in on their games, playing with them every couple of months for a year or more, that you’ve probably taken twenty-five hundred dollars off them, maybe more.”
“Maybe,” he says. “It’s a good game. They have money, and they’re not that smart about how they play. Plus they drink a lot. It’s a lot easier to win money off of somebody who’s drunk.”
“And you’ve been drinking. I smell beer on your breath,” Zach says.
“I’m not drunk. I had one beer. If you’re going to play cards and want to win, you don’t get drunk. You hope everybody else does.”
“Well, that’s true,” my granddad says.
“You, too?” Peter shoots him a hard look that makes me think of the way he looked at me upstairs. “You don’t believe me, either? About anything else I’ve said?”
“I didn’t say that, Peter. I was agreeing with you. You want to win some money, you want to be sober, and if the other players aren’t, that’s an advantage for you.”
“So, you have been playing with them for a while?” Zach asks.
“Yeah. You know I play cards sometimes. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“No, but twenty-five hundred dollars is. Do you have that kind of money stashed away somewhere?”
Does he? I’ve never seen him throw money around like someone who has a lot of it.
“I don’t know,” Peter says. “You know how it is. You win sometimes. You lose sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Zach says, but it’s clear that he doesn’t believe Peter.
“What is it?” Peter asks, even madder than before. “You think I’m drunk? Want to breathalyse me? Fine. Call the cop back. You think I’m buying drugs with that kind of money? Bring on the drug test. Want to search me? Search my room? Whatever. Just ... What do you want from me?”
“Hey, anytime a cop brings you home, you’re going to be answering some questions,” Zach says.
“Fine. What else do you want to know?”
“Okay, I think that’s enough for tonight,” my gram says. “It’s getting late. I’m tired. I want to go to bed. Everybody out.”
Which is odd. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her kick anybody out of her house. I think she’s jus
t trying to get Peter off the hook for now, give everybody a chance to calm down.
She walks over to Peter and gives him a hug.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “For busting up your nice dinner.”
“I don’t care about that, Peter. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
She tells everybody goodnight, gives me a hug, too, and whispers, “He’s okay. Try not to worry so much.”
“I can’t help it,” I whisper back, not surprised my gram noticed how upset I am.
And I’m glad she’s trying to help Peter by ending the conversation for now, but no one has said anything about Peter’s mother yet. And now I’m supposed to go home, without finding out what her getting out of prison means to Peter. I won’t sleep until I know.
Everybody starts heading for the mudroom off the kitchen, where we left our coats and things. I manage to get to Peter’s side and say softly into his ear, “Call me? If you find out anything about your mom? Please?”
“I’ll try,” he says.
Which means, he probably won’t. After all, how hard is it to make a phone call?
And then my dad gets me out of there. Mom took the van, I realize when we get outside. “How are we getting home?”
“Sam’s old truck. I’ll bring it back tomorrow,” my dad says.
Lost in my thoughts, I climb in for the five-minute drive to our house. We’re almost home when my dad says, “Dana, you can’t save him from himself.”
“What?”
“Peter. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. You can’t change that.”
“I don’t believe that,” I say. “He’s my friend. I’m going to do whatever I can to help him.”
“Right. I know. I’m just saying, there’s only so much you can do. You need to understand that.”
“No. I don’t. You make it sound like you’re giving up on him, like he’s just a bad person--”
“That’s not what I said. I said you can’t save him.”
Of course, I can, I want to say back. I love him. I’ll never, ever give up on him. If love can’t save him, what will?
But I can’t say any of that. Not to my dad. He really doesn’t want to hear anything like that. Me, in love with anybody. Me, growing up. Me, never giving up on Peter.
“Do you know what he’s doing with all that money?” my dad asks.
“He told you. He wants a car or a truck, which is a perfectly normal thing for a seventeen-year-old to want. Why is that so hard to believe? Because it’s Peter?”
My dad doesn’t answer.
“Could you just give him a chance?” I ask. “And stop holding his past against him? It’s not his fault, what his parents were like, what they did.”
“No, it’s not. But growing up the way he did, going through the kind of things he did, changes a person.”
“What kind of things? His parents drinking? Stealing?”
“That’s part of it,” he says.
“What else is there?” I don’t know about anything else. Not really. I’d know if other really bad things happened, wouldn’t I? But then I think about the way Peter looked upstairs talking about the possibility of his mother coming back. I ask my dad, “What did his mother do to him?”
“I don’t know all of it, Dana. I’m not sure anyone does, except Peter. He has a lot of anger. He has to find a way to deal with it, a way that’s not self-destructive.”
“Then, he will,” I say. “I’ll help him. Zach and Julie will. He’ll be fine.
My dad shakes his head. “Honey, it’s not that simple. I wish it was.”
“I won’t give up on him. Not ever.”
My dad sighs. “That’s what I’m afraid of. You don’t give up on anybody.”
“I always thought that was a good thing.”
“Usually.”
“But not with Peter?”
“Dana, I just don’t want you to get hurt. That’s all.”
“I won’t. Peter would never hurt me.”
“I hope not.”
“Dad! He wouldn’t!”
“There are a lot of ways to get hurt, Dana. Not just physically.”
Oh.
He thinks Peter’s going to break my heart?
Which means my dad knows how I feel about Peter. Is it that obvious? Does everyone know? I hate that idea. Everyone knowing. Watching. Waiting. Feeling sorry for me? Embarrassed for me? Oh, please, not that.
I turn my head toward the side window, because I feel tears threatening, and I don’t want my dad to see. I feel him take my hand and squeeze it, letting me know he’s here for me, and he cares. I know he does. I love him, so much. I know I’m lucky to have a dad like him.
But he’s not going to change my mind about Peter.
No one is.
I will never give up on him.
* * *
Dana
I lie in my bed that night, my phone in my hand, waiting for him to call. I try reading some of my lit homework, working some math problems, but I can’t concentrate enough to do either one.
Finally, just before midnight, my phone rings. I snatch it up and close my eyes at the sound of his voice, because it’s somehow better that way. It seems like it’s just the two of us, no one else, and he’s right beside me.
“Hey,” he says, and that’s all it takes. I’m so relieved.
“Hey. What did you find out?”
“Not much. Like you said, Zach claims he didn’t hear about Mom getting out until today, and then he played phone-tag with a couple of people he needs to talk to, to find out exactly when she’s getting out and ... You know.”
I take a breath, try to find some patience, and it just isn’t there. Not about this. “They won’t just give you back to her.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
“They won’t. Why would they? You’ve been with Zach and Julie for three and a half years now. Things are going well--”
“Dana, a cop just delivered me to your grandparents’ house tonight.”
“Did Zach think that will be a problem?”
“He said it would be a helluva lot better if things like that never happened.”
“Okay, but the cop didn’t arrest you. So there’s probably no paperwork on it, no reason social services would even find out.”
“In this town? As small as it is?”
“But nothing happened, right? You said nothing happened.”
He makes a disgusted sound. “You still don’t believe me?”
“That’s not what I said, Peter. It’s not what I meant. I just ... Nothing happened, so there’s nothing for social services to find out.”
But I hurt him. I can tell by the sound of his voice. He sounds even more surprised and hurt than he did when he thought my granddad didn’t believe him.
And he really thinks Zach and Julie will kick him out of their house? That there’s anything he can do to make them? We don’t do that in my family, and my family is his family, too. How can he not know that?
“Look, I’ve got to go,” he says.
“Where? It’s midnight. Just talk to me, please. This will be okay.”
“You always think everything’s going to be fine. It’s like you live in this magical world where everything just works out, or you think it does. The world doesn’t work like that, Dana.”
“I know that. Luc just died. It’s not like I’ve forgotten there are bad things in the world. But this ... This is going to be fine. You’ll see,” I tell him. “Is everything else okay? Are they still freaking out about the poker game and the money and the cop?”
“I don’t know. They’re not happy. But shit, it may not matter. I may not be theirs to worry about soon.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t.”
“Sorry,” he says. “I gotta go. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
He’s gone before I can say anything else, before I can figure out what to say.
I think about what my dad said, about what Peter’s life was like with his parents, a
bout me not knowing how bad it was. He would have told me, wouldn’t he? But the way he’s acting and the way my dad said what he did, I think there must be things I don’t know about. Bad things. I hate that so much, thinking those people hurt him.
Whatever they did, they can’t have him back. I won’t let that happen. If it takes my grandparents, my parents, Zach and Julie ... whoever it takes. I’ll talk to them all, make them all do everything they can to stop this. My grandparents have lots of friends at social services. They adopted my mom and her siblings years ago. My mother sees patients in social services’ care and volunteers at a local shelter for battered women and children. Zach does some legal work for the shelter. My gram raises money for them, and Granddad’s on the board, so my family has all sorts of ties to the social work community.
We can do this. I’m sure of it.
It all goes round and round in my head until I finally fall asleep, and then I wake up knowing where I need to start to help. I feel like the worst friend in the world, because I didn’t know Peter’s so worried about what will happen when his mother gets out.
For so long, he was my best friend, and I realize more clearly than ever that he’s not anymore. Something happened. Something’s changed between us, and I don’t know what it is, and he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. Every time I get close to working up my nerve to ask, he suddenly has something to do or changes the subject. It’s like he won’t even let me ask, and that hurts. The whole thing hurts so much. He’s at least supposed to be my friend.
I doubt this is some new idea of his -- that his place with Zach and Julie is so precarious, that he could do something to make them get rid of him. This is something he’s felt for a long time, and I was his best friend until very, very recently. Which means, I should have been the person he told everything. I used to tell him everything, except how I really feel about him.