Trigger

by Susan Vaught

  Say something.

  And don’t say something stupid.

  She was so pretty, even now that I knew she had Nick the honey-honey. I wished I still had muscles. I wished I knew how to fix muscles and Moms and broken presents. If I broke so much stuff, I should at least learn to glue them all back together again.

  “Ghost book. I just—Mom and Dad, and purple shoelaces.” My head started to hurt all of a sudden. “Stuff is so broken. And cheerleaders peanuted me—and—and Todd was there, and our parents were broken, too.”

  Leza’s eyebrows pulled together over her nose. Her eyes glazed over a little. “Um, okay. Maybe I’ll figure all that out by tomorrow.”

  My head hurt worse. My face had to be turning red. More buses left. I thought about pulling my hand back, but I didn’t want to be a Big Larry and break something else. I really didn’t want to go driving around with Nick the muscleman either. I could think of lots of things I’d rather do than ride around with Nick. Like have all my teeth pulled. Like wear purple shoelaces to a funeral.

  “Shoelaces.”

  Leza looked down. “Black ones.” She sounded tired, or maybe like I was getting on her nerves. I was probably getting on her nerves. I was probably missing my bus.

  I tugged my hand a little. “Bus. Ghost book. Shoelaces.” Even though it nearly made my brain explode out of my stupid-marks, I managed to smile so she might let me go.

  Leza shrugged. She dropped my hand. “Just—okay, if that’s how you want it. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I was glad she didn’t stick around to see me trip down the last two stairs and nearly bust my face. The bus almost left without me, but I got to the door just in time to bang on it.

  The driver let me in. When I went by him, I thought I heard him say, “Freak.”

  But I could have imagined that part. I probably did, since it sounded like Todd. When my head hurt, I imagined lots of things. Maybe I imagined Leza being tired of me, but I didn’t think so. Leza was getting tired of me. Her honey-honey probably thought I was a pain, like Todd did. Or maybe I was imagining everything. I wished I was.

  All the way home, I kept my eyes closed. The sun was too bright again. I wondered if the sun could cook my eyeballs. It felt like it was cooking my eyeballs. There had to be some way to fix Mom, right? Things got better, then they got worse. I could make them better again if I tried. If I got Mom and Dad glued, other stuff would be easier to fix.

  So I just needed to use my best pragmatics. No Big Larry talking, or breaking things, or acting weird at track meets. No looking in boxes. No upsetting her.

  My eyeballs were definitely cooking.

  At least my house wasn’t too far. My stomach growled. I hoped I could find some chips or something. I needed to eat and read over my lists and figure out what to do to start fixing Mom. Shoelaces. I’d already forgotten the library and the ghost book, and I didn’t want to forget anything else. If I forgot stuff I might freak out and if I freaked out, Mom might crack.

  I thought about my clay dream all the way up our front steps, and the whole time I fought with the stupid door to get it open.

  Inside, it was darker. Good. Darker was good. All dark and quiet, except—except—

  Noises upstairs. Bangs and rustles.

  Stop imagining.

  I closed my eyes against the sharp pains in my head.

  Stop, stop, stop. Nothing’s there. Mom was at work. Dad was at work. J.B. was a ghost and he ran his mouth, but he didn’t make bang-and-rustle noises, and besides, I was going to kill him first chance I got.

  Something banged and rustled again.

  My eyes popped open.

  Not imagining.

  Mom or Dad must have come home. Dad. Dad always banged around like that. He probably remembered my half day and wanted to make me some awful lunch. That was it. That was all. No need to be a baby. No need to be a freak. Why did my head have to hurt so bad? Maybe I deserved it. But I wasn’t going to deserve it anymore. No more ruining.

  I put my memory book down on the first step and climbed up as carefully as I could. My headache made the hall seem too long, but I ignored that. That was imagining. Halls didn’t get longer and shorter. The noon sunlight came out of rooms in weird ways, making patterns on the floor. I walked across the patterns. The gold in my shoelaces glittered.

  When I got to my parents’ room, I looked inside, mostly expecting to see Dad, but I didn’t see Dad.

  I saw Mom.

  Shoelaces.

  Mom was standing by their bed dressed in jeans and a black blouse. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, all straggly and sweaty and out of place like she’d been working really hard. Stuff lay all over the bed—boxes, clothes, suitcases.

  My head gave a bad stab and I had to shut my eyes for a second.

  All that stuff. Mom, sweaty. She had been working hard making a great big mess. Was she looking for something? Was she upset like tearing-out-her-hair upset again? If she was, I had to help her. I had to start gluing instead of breaking.

  When I opened my eyes again, Mom was still standing beside the bed. She reached down and grabbed something as I walked into the room.

  Then she saw me and jumped. When she turned toward me, she got all still, like she was trying to turn back into ice.

  “No,” I whispered. “No ice. No breaking.”

  I was going to help her. Glue her.

  Then I saw how her hands gripped a folded white shirt. She glanced from me to the boxes and open suitcases on her bed.

  Throbbing. Throbbing. My brain was throbbing. My head hurt so much. I rubbed my stupid-mark and tried not to cry because of the throbbing. If I cried, I’d be breaking instead of gluing. Boxes. Boxes and that shirt and suitcases and what a big mess. “Suitcases,” I mumbled. “You going somewhere?”

  The bright sunshine through the open window blinds made stripes on Mom’s face. She blinked too fast and swallowed a lot and held onto her shirt. “What are you doing here? School isn’t out for hours.”

  “Half day. Teacher training stuff.” My throat felt so tight I could barely talk, but the look on her face made me worry, so the words came out. “Did somebody die? Everybody’s dead, though. I mean, Grandma and Grandpa and stuff. Shoelaces. Who died?”

  Something like a smile changed Mom’s lips, but it wasn’t really a smile. My headache brain thought she was about to scream, and I winced. A scream would make my head blow up for sure. But Mom never screamed except when she found me holding guns. The sunlight-stripes blazed. Fire on her face. Fire in my head. Shoelaces. Sin. Probation officers. Please don’t scream.

  “You were such a special baby,” Mom said quietly instead of screaming. Her lips moved weird again. She looked down at her shirt, then back up at me. “I still see that when I look at you. Did you know that?”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I rubbed the sides of my head.

  Mom studied her shirt again. “Sometimes I don’t even notice the scars.”

  Before I could stop myself, I touched them all. Every stupid-mark. They felt flat and smooth and hot, and not even like real skin. Something needed to be glued, but what? How?

  Mom just stood there, talking more to her shirt than to me. “Sometimes, the scars are all I can see. The scars and how still you were when I opened that door. All that blood—and you were so, so still….”

  Her voice trailed away to nothing.

  I was the frozen one now, stuck in the bedroom doorway with my hand on the stupid-mark at my temple. When I pushed it, the pain in my head ran to my fingers and pushed back. Tears slid down my face. This needed a lot of glue, if I could fix it. I could fix it. I had to. Mom didn’t need to be broken anymore.

  But she looked all shattered, standing there with the sun and shadows striped across her face, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t pick up any pieces.

  “Sometimes I forget, and the day seems normal enough,” she told the shirt in her hands. Her hands were shaking. “Then I remember, and all I can thin
k about is checking on you, getting there sooner, getting there before it’s too late this time.”

  Too late. Too late. Too late. I pushed the stupid-mark harder, harder. Maybe I’d pass out and not hear anything else. My head wouldn’t hurt and my heart wouldn’t hurt, as long as I didn’t wake up.

  “I can’t live like that. Like this. Worrying every second, until I’m sick inside.” Mom finally looked at me instead of the shirt. “I tried, Jersey. I really did. I hope you believe me.”

  Tried. Believe. She tried. She couldn’t live like this. She tried. I wanted to throw up.

  Mom put the shirt down in her suitcase.

  She came over to where I was standing, and that’s when I realized she was crying as much as me.

  “You don’t understand, do you? I never know for sure.” Her hands shook and shook when she put them on my shoulders. Her eyes had big circles under them like they did when I first got home from the hospital. When she talked, her breath smelled bad, like she hadn’t brushed her teeth in a long time.

  I was supposed to understand something. Glue something. Her hands on my shoulders. The boxes and suitcases. Circles under her eyes. Understand. Understand. Believe. She tried.

  “I was going to call you later.” She let go of my shoulders to hug herself. “Give you my number.”

  Even through the hammer-hammer of my headache and my brain, I added call you later to phone number and suitcases and boxes. “How long? Is it for work? You’re leaving for work, right?”

  Big Larry. Selfish. Don’t be a baby. Don’t break things. It’s okay if she goes somewhere for a few days. She’d stayed at work overnight before. But there were a lot of suitcases. Women took lots of suitcases sometimes. And boxes. And the mess. More tears leaked out of my eyes. Leaving. She tried. She couldn’t live like this. She tried, but she was leaving. Leaving the room and the blood and how I looked all still in the blood. Leaving the house and Dad and being sick and me. Leaving me.

  No.

  Moms couldn’t leave. Moms didn’t leave.

  “Moms don’t leave.” It popped out. Then it jumped out. “Moms don’t leave!”

  Mom’s tears didn’t leak anymore. They just plain ran. And her hands shook worse.

  “You left me first, Jersey,” she whispered.

  She dug her fingers into her arms as she stared at me with those circles under her eyes and her hair everywhere. I thought about when she tore out her hair in my room, and my head hurt more, more. I was going to throw up. I really was.

  I left her.

  I left her first.

  I broke everything.

  “You left me like—like that.” She pointed down the hall to my room. “And you didn’t even try to talk to me first. You didn’t say good-bye, you didn’t pack a suitcase—and—and you left me to clean up the mess.”

  She sobbed and hugged herself harder. “I had your blood all over me. Later, I kept showering and showering, but it wouldn’t come off.”

  More sobs.

  The room spun and lurched. I closed my eyes. Opened them. Mom had blood all over her, just like she said. My blood. Smeared on her face, soaking her clothes, covering her hands. Her eyes, still like I had been still. Dead like I’d been dead. Almost, but not quite. Just a little life left. A few pieces, maybe big enough to glue, but only if they didn’t break any more.

  When I blinked, the blood went away, but I thought I could still see it. Like a scar on Mom. Like the scars I had, only deep under her skin where she could feel it and nobody else.

  “I just need some time to myself,” she said. “Can you understand that?”

  Don’t throw up. Can’t throw up. All those suitcases. All that mess. How long? Where? How long? The room turned circles and my stomach turned with it. My fault. Not my fault. Her. She couldn’t handle things. My fault. I broke Mom. She told me it was okay if I said stupid stuff, so I hadn’t been trying. Not hard enough. Real Big Larry. Real selfish. I acted stupid at the track meet. I could be less stupid. And lots less selfish. Unselfish. Don’t throw up. My fault. Handle things. She was leaving. Of course she was leaving. Why would she stay here with shoelaces and peanuts and losers like me? Time to herself. She was leaving for time. Time without me, without the blood, without Dad, without me, especially me.

  “Time,” I said even though I had my teeth clenched. My head hurt so bad I felt it in my teeth, my fingers. My stomach turned over and over and over.

  “Time,” Mom echoed. She looked like she wanted to touch me again. She took a step toward me.

  “Don’t. No!” I backed away from her, into the hall. “Cracks down the middle. Your arms might fall off. Dust. Clay and dust. I’ll turn you into dust!”

  She stared at me with those flat, broken eyes.

  I turned around and stumbled down the hall. Away from her eyes. Away from her. To the bathroom. I shut the door, made it to the toilet, sort of fell toward it, and threw up. Then I sat there smelling acid and tasting bad, bitter stuff. It was dark with the door shut. The toilet seat felt cool on my cheek. Dark and cool. Cool and dark. Was I still crying? Still crying. But my eyes had dried up. All the tears cried up. Cracks. My mom had cracks down the middle. Her arms had fallen off. If I said anything else, if I went out there and bothered her, she’d just be dust. So I sat with my head hurting until all the tears were gone in the cool-dark for a long, long, long time.

  Time. Time and dark.

  By the time I got up and went out into the hall, the house was quiet again. Totally quiet.

  Time and quiet.

  The mess and the boxes and the suitcases were gone.

  Time and gone.

  So was my mother.

  chapter 20

  Dad and I counted days by breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  Slow. So slow. Even in my head, stuff was … slow.

  Three meals equaled a day.

  Slow.

  The first breakfast-lunch-dinner, we didn’t even put on real clothes, just stayed in our pajamas and robes. Slow. He didn’t make me go to school. I didn’t make him go to work. So, so slow. Nobody called us, not even Leza.

  Mom’s gone and it sucks, I wrote in my memory book. Then I wrote a whole page of it sucks.

  Dad made bad oatmeal and good sandwiches and so-so frozen diners and borrowed my memory book. He wrote half a page of it really sucks, and she’ll come back soon, and we’ll be okay.

  When Dad talked, he sounded slow.

  He wrote slow, too.

  He wanted me to stay in his room for a little while, until he was sure about the we’ll be okay part. The bed was big enough and he said he’d worry less if he could see me. Slow. Slower. Slowest. I didn’t argue with him. At least that way I didn’t have to listen to J.B. on top of everything else.

  After our third lunch, we made each other take showers and get dressed, and after our third dinner, Dad tried to tell me that Mom leaving wasn’t my fault.

  He was sitting at the table when he said it. Fast, not slow. I was putting my dishes in the sink. Slow, not fast.

  Dad cleared his throat. “You don’t think it’s your fault, do you? Because it isn’t, Jersey.”

  I dropped my plate on top of my glass by accident, but it didn’t break. “Don’t, okay?” I said.

  He leaned forward, like he could reach me to pat my back. “But you need to know—”

  “I know!” I turned around fast not slow and I almost fell. Dad stood up to help me but I shook my head. Fast, fast. Not slow. He backed off and sat down as I pulled on the edge of the cabinet to stand straight. “Straight. Slow. I know. It’s my fault.”

  “No. We had fights before you ever shot yourself. And while you were at the hospital, and since you’ve been home—”

  “Have ears,” I cut him off again, knocking my good hand against my ear. “They work better than my eyes. Please stop. Ears.”

  Dad closed his eyes. Opened them. Rubbed his hand over his beard-stubble. “I just don’t want you to be upset.”

  Dad needed to shave.
He needed to shut up.

  That volcano-feeling started in me again, way down deep, hot and hotter and hotter, moving up to my chest, down my arms to my fingers. They twitched. My ears burned. “Ears. Hurt myself. You don’t want me upset because you think I’ll hurt myself again. I know. Straight. I know. Slow. So does Mom.”

  “Jersey, she—”

  “Found me! Needs more time!” Down, volcano, no blowing up but I have to blow up or my head will blow up, blow off. “Mom thinks I left her. I left Mom. Ears! I don’t—I don’t want to talk now, okay?”

  Dad finally leaned back. He looked like he was giving up. Good. Glad. Ears. All the lava inside me went back down.

  He let out a long breath. “She said in her note that she’d call tonight.”

  “Don’t want to talk,” I said so fast I messed up talk like tawk. “Tomorrow, school and stuff. I just need ears. I mean, school. Back to normal.”

  “Okay.” Dad folded his hands and stared down at his fingers. “School tomorrow.”

  The bus was late. I was missing Algebra. And talking to Leza, if Leza would talk to me. She might be mad. She had called after the third dinner, but I didn’t talk to her then. I told Dad to tell her “later.” Mama Rush called from The Palace. Dad told her “later,” too. Mom called. Dad didn’t tell Mom “later.” He just listened. She said she’d taken a week off from the bank, and she was at the beach. When she came back, she was checking into a hotel.

  Maybe she’d stay at the beach. Maybe the beach fixed broken people. Or maybe the way I broke people, they couldn’t ever be fixed. Ears. At least the bus finally came. At least no Algebra.

  When I got off the bus, I saw the Wench standing by the front doors in a black dress with black shoes that didn’t have any laces, not even black and gold springy ones like mine. She saw me and waved. I didn’t wave back. As I went slow, slow, good boy, bad boy up the steps, the Wench just stood there with this weird smile and her hand up from when she waved.

  Don’t say ears. Don’t say Santa Claus, and especially don’t say devil. No devils. Ears would be better than devils. Slow, slow, slow.