Reclaimed

by Sarah Guillory

  Each road grew smaller and wilder as we drove into the country, the layers of civilization peeling away until we eased down a tiny dirt road through the center of the woods, finally taking an even smaller one to the cove. We pulled out of the trees and into a tiny clearing. The moon turned the lake silver, and the Point protruded like a bony finger. Luke parked and turned off the engine; the hush of night rushed in. “Wait here,” he said.

  The dark was different out here, like maybe how dark was supposed to be before man tamed it. The moon kept my secret, giving me just enough light to see Luke’s outline but not enough to let him see the conflict that must have been on my face.

  Luke took my hand and helped me out of the truck. It was the first time we’d consciously touched, and I couldn’t ignore the way his skin melted into mine. A blanket lay underneath a pine tree growing close to the water. Luke had set a small lantern in the center of the blanket, and I folded down next to a pizza box from Repete’s. I laughed and opened the box. Cold shrimp pizza. My favorite.

  “You’re not allergic?” I asked.

  “Nope. Just Ian.”

  “Weird,” I said, grabbing a slice and putting it on the paper plate Luke had set out. “I thought twins were exactly alike.” But I knew better. Luke was nothing like Ian. And I hadn’t yet figured out how I felt about that.

  “Hardly.” His voice was low and rough, his jaw a sharp line.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Honest mistake.” He loaded his plate with pizza. “We are identical, literally split in half. But allergies aren’t in our DNA, so he got them and I didn’t.”

  The water slapped softly against the shore, a gentle percussion backed up by the hum of insects. The night made us whisper. The pizza sat uneaten. I forgot food when I was talking to Luke. I forgot to envy Becca and resent my mom. I forgot escape, because when Luke spoke, there was nowhere else to go. I made him describe all the places he’d lived. I felt small when he talked about the Rockies and indescribably young when he talked about one of the castles he remembered visiting in Germany. After a while, some of Luke’s black arrogance fell away and I saw the boy underneath.

  We took off our shoes and stuck our feet in the warm water. Solitude Point’s jagged edge jutted out to our left and seemed to cut the sky in half. We lay on our backs and looked up at the stars. Luke and I weren’t touching, but I could feel the heat rolling off his skin.

  “What do you miss most about home?” I asked him.

  “Which one?”

  “Any of them,” I said. “All of them.”

  I turned my head to look at him. He was looking up, his profile dark and angular in the shadows.

  “I knew exactly who I was back there,” he whispered. “Here, I could be anyone.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked. That was one of the reasons I wanted to leave here. Go somewhere where no one knew me, so I could be exactly whoever I wanted to be, instead of trying to play the part I was given back before I was even born.

  “Not always.” He rolled his head toward me, our faces almost touching in the dark. “Sometimes when you lose yourself, you never find your way back.”

  It got harder and harder to breathe with him looking at me like that. He was so sad.

  He sat up abruptly. “Let’s go for a swim.” I could tell it took some effort for him to make his voice light.

  “I don’t have my suit,” I said.

  His laugh was loud in the quiet night. “No suits necessary.” He stood up and pulled off his shirt in one swift movement.

  I blushed and was glad it was dark. “Already trying to get me out of my clothes,” I said.

  He laughed again. “You coming or not?”

  And before I had a chance to change my mind, I waded in, clothes and all. “I’m not that easy.”

  The water was warm, although the farther we swam, the more cold pockets we found. I tried not to think about what was swimming underneath me in the dark.

  “I’m feeling a little reckless,” I admitted. There was something about being here with Luke that made me want to see what it would be like to make choices based on this moment, rather than future ones.

  “Oh really?” His voice taunted me in the dark. “Because I have all sorts of ideas.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” I explained, jerking my head toward the cliff. “I’m talking about jumping off the Point.”

  “You’ve jumped before?” he asked.

  “It’s been awhile,” I told him. “It’s illegal now.” For good reason. But tonight I wasn’t going to think about then. I was only going to think about now.

  “I take it you don’t break the law,” Luke said, treading water until I caught up.

  I kicked harder and swam past him. “I take it you do.”

  He chuckled. “Only the stupid ones.”

  We pulled through the black water, everything quiet but our splashes and the sound of our breathing. Tiny goose bumps appeared on my arms as I put my feet down and waded onto shore.

  “How do we get up there?” Luke asked, staring up at the towering cliff.

  “We climb.”

  I gripped the sharp rock and positioned my feet, pushing up with my legs, then balancing and placing my hands. It wasn’t an easy climb, especially in the dark, and I didn’t look down. Luke was halfway up when I reached the top, and I waited for him.

  He was out of breath. “How far down is it?”

  “Twenty or thirty feet. I’m not sure exactly.”

  I peered over the cliff, my toes grabbing the edge. I couldn’t see the water. The rock was solid and safe, but I couldn’t wait to leap into the unknown. It could end badly, or it could be glorious. All I knew was that I wanted a chance to fly.

  Life held so much possibility—failure or wild success, poverty or wealth, love or heartache. And with the varying shades in between each of those, I had no idea what would happen. There would be pain, and eventually death, but oh God, the possibility. If I stayed put, I was fairly certain how my life would turn out. But out there, there was no way of knowing. Absolutely none. And that was the rush—the chance that absolutely anything could happen. Here, nothing ever would. Not really.

  I leaned out, letting my body pull me forward into nothing. At the very last moment, I pulled my hands above my head and pushed away from the cliff, diving headfirst into the dark.

  It was several glorious, completely uncontrollable seconds before I hit the water. I let myself dive farther and farther toward the bottom, then curved toward the surface in a huge arc, kicking hard with my legs. Just when I thought I wasn’t going to be able to hold my breath any longer, I broke the surface and pulled in a deep breath.

  “Jenna? You okay?” Luke’s voice floated somewhere above me.

  “I’m great! Your turn,” I shouted back, sending my voice out toward his.

  Luke ran and leapt from the edge, throwing himself off the cliff in a sudden burst of momentum. He hit the water hard, spray flying back up almost to the cliff’s edge. He came up grinning.

  “You made that look too easy,” he said.

  We swam back toward the cliff. Luke reached the Point first and wrapped his hand around my wrist, pulling me through the water and into his chest. I stopped breathing.

  He was standing on a ledge at the base of the Point, and I put my feet down as he turned my back to the rock and leaned in toward me. Water lapped at my waist, the rock rough through my wet clothes. I wondered if Luke could hear my heart beating against my skin. I could—it was so loud in my ears that it drowned out every other sound.

  He reached up and traced his fingers down the side of my face, and I shivered as they trailed across my throat.

  “Aren’t you going to ask if you can kiss me?” I whispered. I couldn’t help remembering that Ian had.

  His answer had no words but said everything. I couldn’t think about Ian when Luke’s lips moved against mine. I put my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, feeling more reckless than I had when
I’d thrown myself off the Point. When he ran his fingers down the side of my neck, I couldn’t think at all.

  Luke pulled away, and I felt his whisper on my skin. “I never ask permission.”

  LUKE

  The world was a different place when Jenna spoke. Her words revealed the box where I’d hidden pieces of myself. Her kiss broke the lock. Her voice coaxed the ragged shards out of the dark. I started to come back together, finding what I thought had been lost forever. We talked, and the water sighed against the shore. We talked, and the sky changed from black to purple. Blue hinted at the horizon. We were going to have to get back. My mom would be home from work soon. We needed to slink back under cover of darkness. If I wasn’t there when she got in, there would be hell to pay. But it would be worth it.

  I reached out and brushed the hair away from Jenna’s face. She looked up at me, her eyes wide and trusting, and in that moment, I didn’t care what happened. I would risk everything just to stay there. I wanted to tether the sun to the earth, keep it from coming up and ending the perfect night. Instead, I sat up and reached for my shirt.

  “Where did you get that scar?” Jenna asked. She reached across the space between us, her fingers trembling just a little bit, like she was afraid to touch me. To be honest, I was afraid of her touching me, like it was some line we were about to cross. It was ridiculous. I’d crossed that line when I’d shown up at her house. And that kiss had been more like running across a bridge and setting it ablaze. I knew now that, no matter what happened, we couldn’t go back. And I hated myself for it. Because if she got hurt, it would be all my fault. And there was no way she wouldn’t get hurt at this point. No matter what happened, it was going to be painful.

  I caught my breath as her fingers lightly stroked the scar that ran along my right side. Her fingers were cool, and I brought her hand to my lips and kissed her palm. I wanted to bury my hands in her hair and forget everything else, but I answered her question instead.

  “When Ian and I were twelve, he had appendicitis. Emergency, so they had to cut him open to take it out. He has a scar too, except his isn’t as rough.” I was the one with all the jagged edges. “I hated that he had a mark I didn’t, something to tell us apart. We were really close when we were little, and it felt like that scar had separated us.” I’d been so young then. Naïve. That scar hadn’t separated us. I had. “One night, I got out of bed and snuck down to the kitchen. I took a kitchen knife and sliced into my stomach.”

  Jenna flinched and pulled away. “You must have been out of your mind. You could have died.”

  “I didn’t cut that deep,” I told her. “Just a few stitches, good as new, and Ian and I were identical again.”

  She shook her head. It was a pretty gruesome story. “What happened?” she asked.

  I knew what she was talking about. And I wasn’t ready to tell her everything just yet. I wanted a little more time with her. I’d always been a selfish bastard.

  “We grew up.” I slid on my shirt. “We’d better go.”

  She nodded and helped me carry the stuff back to the truck.

  “You probably shouldn’t mention this to Ian,” I said. I had enough problems already.

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  I grinned. “I believe I’ve been a bad influence on you.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” She climbed in the passenger side of the truck and slammed the door.

  I knew I should feel bad about wanting to see her again. Ian was the better brother, the one more deserving of Jenna, but I couldn’t help but hope she would pick me, as impossible and improbable as I knew that was.

  I started the truck. “You know, I really don’t mind a little competition.” Hell, I’d been competing with my brother my whole life. In school, in sports, for our parents’ attention. He always won.

  “Who said it would be a competition?” she asked, arching her eyebrow.

  Ouch.

  FIFTEEN

  JENNA

  I didn’t know what to do, so I avoided them both. I worked. I took down and dusted all the books, making sure they were organized correctly and that none had fallen to the back of the shelves. I went through numerous boxes from the back, pricing and displaying whatever was inside. I filled my mind with stories, creating lives for the remnants I found—a single chopstick with mother-of-pearl inlay, a Scooby Doo lunchbox, two handfuls of costume jewelry. When my stories gained characters similar to either Ian or Luke, I found something else to do.

  At night I ran, trying to outdistance the demons. But sometimes the absurdity of the whole thing caught up with me, overtook me on the trails and shouldered its way next to me, matching me stride for stride. Who was I to think I even got to choose? They weren’t outfits—I couldn’t just put Ian on one day and Luke the next. And who said either one of them was interested in me anyway? They sure hadn’t called.

  Becca sent me an email from Italy with a picture of her sitting on the edge of a fountain, laughing. She had her arms around two dark-haired boys. She ended her note with “sorry your summer sucks.” And even though I knew she hadn’t meant anything by it, I was even more determined to prove her wrong.

  And while working at Repete’s wasn’t the kind of adventure I was looking for, at least taking orders and making pizzas kept my mind occupied enough that it didn’t wander to Ian or Luke. I prayed they wouldn’t come in, and they didn’t, and then I hated myself for wanting them to—and for not knowing which one I wanted to see.

  “Everything okay at home?” Pete asked. It was Monday afternoon and we were both in the kitchen working on a to-go order for a birthday party.

  I shrugged. Nothing was okay, but Pete didn’t need the gory details.

  “I lost both my parents before I was twenty-five,” Pete told me, “and I drank to try and get through some of the worst of it, especially after I lost my football scholarship. It didn’t help.”

  I hadn’t heard this story—I didn’t even know he’d gone to college.

  He nodded, answering my unasked question, and continued layering pepperoni. “My dad died in the spring of my freshman year at the university. I came home to help my mom settle a few things, and when a few things turned into way more than we could handle and I couldn’t get back for summer workouts, they cut me loose.”

  “That’s awful,” I said. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than finally making it out only to be pulled back in again, like drowning, getting a gulp of air, then being pulled farther and farther under until that lungful of air was replaced by a mouthful of water.

  Pete turned and slid the pizza in the oven. “I couldn’t control it. Mom died a few years later, but it was too late for me to go back. But your mom,” he said, bringing the conversation back around, “she’ll pull through.” But that wasn’t something he could promise. No one could.

  A familiar truck was parked against the curb when I pulled into my driveway after work, and a dark figure was sitting on my top step. I analyzed his clothes and hair and the way he was looking at me, but I wasn’t sure until he stood up and smiled. He stood straight, not slouched, and there was nothing mocking or taunting in that smile. Ian. My heart pulled in opposite directions, equally split between relief and disappointment. And guilt for feeling both.

  Ian waited for me on the porch, his back against the railing. He gave me a half-wave and a sheepish grin.

  “Hey,” I said, slamming the car door.

  “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “For not calling.”

  “Which time?” I asked. It had been almost a week since his last text or missed call. Two weeks since the party. But I hadn’t exactly been sitting by the phone either.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “All of them,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it.” I unlocked the front door.

  He stood just outside, looking guilty and uncertain. “I hope I haven’t messed things up.” He said what I should have been saying.

  “You want to stay for dinner?” I asked.
/>   His answering smile was so honest and unmasked that it nearly took my breath away.

  Mom came home an hour later. Ian and I were facing one another on the couch playing a made-up trivia game; he was winning.

  “Jenna! You didn’t tell me you had a date.” Mom smiled at Ian and batted her eyelashes, a move she’d probably perfected by the time she was five. “I’m Vivian Oliver,” she said.

  Ian stood up. “Ian McAlister.” He shook her hand.

  Mom’s eyebrows went up about three inches. “Ah,” she said, as if she had solved some great mystery. “You just moved in.” Her voice caught, and she smiled wider, playing it off. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I invited him for dinner.”

  “Great!” Mom was practically floating. “Hope you like frozen lasagna.”

  “Well, I prefer it cooked, but whatever,” he said.

  A woman who looked like my mother threw back her head and laughed. “If you insist.”

  We sat in the kitchen while the lasagna was in the oven, Mom at the bar, Ian and I in the chairs underneath the window. Mom recycled some of Pops’s old jokes, and I couldn’t tell if she was pretending or if she was finding pieces of her old self. A flash of a smile, eyes that were alert—memories of who she’d been surfaced in her face, but I wasn’t sure I trusted them. She was drinking out of her tumbler, and when she stepped out of the room, I sniffed it. It smelled like Diet Coke, but I couldn’t be sure, so I took a sip. Diet Coke. Usually it was more vodka than anything else, but tonight, she was just herself. Mom without the high-octane. I was more comfortable with her that way—when she was just my mom. When she was someone I had to babysit—protect from herself—then I was tensed muscles and nausea. Drinking Mom said hurtful things and made me ashamed of who she was and who I wasn’t. I couldn’t settle when she was like that.

  But Ian settled us both. He wasn’t barbs and nettles; his edges were water, not rock. He helped me make the salad and set the table. He reminded me what normal felt like. For the first time in months, it felt like home rather than rehab.