Reclaimed

by Sarah Guillory

  I couldn’t voice how I felt about Mom. Watching her destroy herself made me scared and helpless and unbelievably angry. Because she had a choice, and she was choosing wrong.

  “I’m nothing like you!” Mom shouted. “I don’t show up to her games slurring and tripping over myself. I don’t pass out in public places. I’ve never crashed my car through someone’s house.”

  I flinched. That was cruel.

  “Do you think I started there?” Mops asked. She sounded as if she had run through all her anger; her voice became soft and sad. Tired. “Do you think I woke up one day a raging alcoholic? I started exactly where you are. You think you’re in control, but that’s a lie. You’re too much like me. If you don’t stop right now, it’s going to be too late. It hasn’t destroyed your life just yet. It hasn’t destroyed your relationship with Jenna. But it will.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with Jenna,” Mom said.

  How unbelievably naïve. Or blind. And incredibly self-serving. “It has everything to do with me,” I argued. “Who do you think worries about you? Who covers you up when you pass out on the couch? Me. I have to wake up every day and face the fact that my mother is becoming an alcoholic, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t fix this.” The fact that it was completely out of my control was one of the most terrifying things about it. I wanted to make things better more than anything, but Mom was the only one who could. And she was too stubborn to admit it was a problem. “If you keep getting worse, how am I going to be able to go off to college next year? You already screwed up your own life—now you’re screwing up mine.”

  Mom was white as she turned back to face Mops. “Are you happy? Now you’ve turned her against me.”

  Mops shook her head. “You did that yourself.”

  “Get out.” Mom’s voice was quiet and cold; it was the scariest she’d ever sounded, and the most serious. “I want you out of my house.”

  Mops squared her shoulders. “I’m not leaving without Jenna.”

  I blinked in surprise, then felt anger boiling just under my skin. I didn’t want to choose.

  “I’m not leaving her,” I said. Eventually, yes. But not while she still needed me.

  Mom looked smug. Mops walked toward me, her voice pitched low. “I don’t think staying is a good idea.”

  I clenched my jaw. “This is my house. She’s my mother.” Her drinking wasn’t dangerous to me. I needed to be here to protect her from herself. No one else was going to.

  Mops put her hand on my arm. “She’s not your responsibility.”

  I jerked away. I was tired of everyone telling me that. Of course she was. “I’m not leaving,” I said again.

  Mops looked between Mom and me, then sighed. “Don’t let her drive.”

  Mom stormed off to her room.

  “I’m just going to run home and get a few things,” Mops said. “I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

  “You don’t have to stay. She’ll be fine.” I wondered how many times I’d said that over the past few months.

  “I’m staying here for you,” Mops said. She reached up and patted my cheek. “Your mom loves you, no matter how she acts. You’re what keeps this family together.”

  I watched Mops pull out of the driveway before shutting the front door. If I was the glue, then I’d never be able to escape.

  TWENTY-THREE

  JENNA

  I made sure Mops was settled into the back room and Mom was sound asleep on her side before I went for a run. I pounded across the ground, shaking the solid mass of worry into manageable pieces that rattled around. I ran harder, hoping the pieces would become sand and trickle away completely. But the fight with my mom refused to break into smaller pieces. It twisted and turned, letting me see different angles. The accusations. Desperation. Fear and worry and complete frustration. Even love. I missed the mom she used to be, like how we’d curl up in our PJs and watch cheesy movies. I missed making tents out of blankets and crawling under them together to eat raw cookie dough. I missed all the laughter, but mostly I just missed knowing she was okay. She didn’t seem to miss those things at all.

  The crumbling of my family unit should have been enough. But I’d gotten myself into a complete mess with Luke and Ian. That was entirely my fault—I couldn’t shift the blame on anyone else. I should have done things differently, but I hadn’t exactly planned on any of it happening. That wasn’t like me. I was levelheaded and played by the rules. More than anything, I planned my future. And my future didn’t involve love—at least not yet. When I was out of this town and on my own, maybe then. But not before. I didn’t need to get distracted. I needed to get out before I suffocated.

  And then Luke came along and made me realize I couldn’t plan everything, that sometimes I had to let things unfold on their own. The surprises, those things that just happened, were some of the best things. Some of the worst too, but if I wanted out, those were risks I would have to take. I didn’t want to keep myself in some fragile bubble until everything was perfect and I could emerge fully formed and ready for life. Because if I did it that way, I’d never get to live. I’d never get out of that bubble. Things weren’t ever going to go exactly as I’d planned—and sometimes that was okay too.

  I left my mother behind. I left Ian standing somewhere in the past. Lost and found—I ran to escape all the worries and in the process caught up with the me I was supposed to be. And even though I knew that they were still going to be there when I turned around and headed back, it was enough that, for the moment at least, I was alone.

  By the time I hit mile two, my brain had burrowed underneath all that mess and found the quiet stillness that I loved so much. My breath was rhythmic and soothing, and my mind settled down as my body flew over the ground, through the trees, and then out across an open pasture. I thundered across a wooden bridge and back into the woods. I leapt over a log that lay across the path and felt some of me fall away. There was nothing like having a great run. My legs and lungs felt strong; I could run all day. Running made me invincible.

  I was surprised to see that my feet had taken me to the pond. I slipped out of the tall grass and stood next to the water. Silence. Sort of. No screaming or accusations. No anger. Just frogs, bugs, and a slight breeze rippling the grass. It was lovely. I scooped up a handful of rocks and tossed them, one by one, into the pond. I must have thrown in hundreds of rocks over the years. Pops had taught me to skip stones out here, though I was never any good at it. I threw them too hard. And I stuck all the pretty ones in my pockets. Mom was always aggravated when they rattled around in the washer.

  “Maybe you’re the vampire.” A familiar voice stabbed the dark, and I jumped. “You’re trespassing,” Luke said, stepping up behind me.

  “Shoot me.”

  He grinned. “I’m thinking about it.”

  I turned away from the pond and looked up into his face. Even in the dark, I could see his worry. I just didn’t know who that worry was for. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I live here,” he reminded me. “You?”

  I sighed. “I have no idea. I just went for a run and ended up here.” I walked to the beaten wooden chairs sitting farther up on the bank. They were gray and weathered, and they leaned back just enough to make them comfortable. I folded into one of them.

  Luke sat down next to me. “I went for a walk and ended up here,” he told me. “Funny how that happened. So, you got in trouble?”

  I nodded. My being grounded was the least of my worries.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head.

  He reached over and held my hand without saying another word. It was easy to forget everything else. Luke was an island I could escape to.

  A whistle rose in the dark, sudden and sharp. Familiar.

  “What’s that?” Luke asked.

  I smiled. “Full House.” And memories. So much of me was wrapped up in this place. Would I ever truly be able to leave?

 
; “What?”

  “A mule,” I explained.

  “Like a donkey?”

  “Half-donkey, half-horse. He’s hollering for Patty, Mr. Simon’s horse.” I used to feed apples to Patty through the fence. Pops would fuss at me for wasting good fruit on someone else’s horse, but I kept doing it. I loved the way her velvet nose tickled my palm. I’d mostly avoided Full House; I never trusted him.

  “How do you know that?” Luke asked.

  “The mule used to be Pops’s. We gave him back to Mr. Simon after Pops died. Full House used to do that all the time when Pops had him. Pops would whistle across the fence and call up Patty, then Full House would lean over and he and Patty would scratch their necks together. I think it’s sweet.”

  Full House whistled again, trying to find Patty. I heard Patty’s answering whinny.

  “Why does he sound like that?” Luke asked.

  I told him what Pops had told me once. “He doesn’t know if he’s a donkey or a horse. He’s both, but he’s neither, just like his voice.” I turned sideways in my chair to look at Luke. “His real name is Fred, but Pops always called him Full House because he won him off Mr. Simon in a poker game years ago. They were all out at the deer camp one night, drinking and playing cards. The older they got, the less they hunted and the more they drank. Mops said they stopped bringing home deer when they started bringing home hangovers.”

  Her voice had been equal parts anger and love when telling those stories about Pops. I hadn’t understood that then. I was pretty sure I did now.

  “Pops didn’t need that mule, but he thought it was funny, so he kept it. The mule’s kind of mean—he doesn’t really like people. But he loves Patty. I think he’s much happier now that he’s back on that side of the fence.”

  The wind kicked up again, shushing through the grass, and I lifted my ponytail and let it blow on the back of my neck.

  “Do you think we can escape the past?” I asked. Mom had gotten bogged down in hers, and Mops couldn’t move on completely because everyone kept reminding her of what she’d been. I wanted to start all over as a girl who didn’t have so many family skeletons in the closet. But what if that wasn’t even possible?

  Luke’s face was so sad that I regretted the question. “We can hope,” he said. But I could tell by his voice that he didn’t really believe it.

  I wasn’t sure how someone could be both strong and fragile. Luke was solid and broad and sturdy, yet at times I felt he might shatter into a million pieces, leaving me behind to collect them and somehow get them back in order, knowing that I was wholly inadequate and unprepared for such a task.

  I leaned my head on his shoulder. My heart squeezed itself against my ribs, all swollen and sore, and I couldn’t seem to fill my lungs with enough air. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered. I knew it was true when I said it out loud. I felt it in my skin.

  Luke was still, shadows flickering across his face like an old black-and-white film. “You aren’t supposed to love the dead.” I didn’t have a response to that.

  “I’m a ghost,” Luke whispered, “a shadow.” And in that moment, he felt like one.

  LUKE

  I was too flawed to love. I was afraid of what would happen if she really did love me. It seemed I always hurt those closest to me.

  “Have you talked to Ian?” Jenna asked finally.

  “No. I haven’t seen him all day, actually. Why?”

  “Because I did. He came by the house yesterday, and my mom yelled at him for bringing me home at that hour, and so he knew, but I was going to have to tell him anyway.” She sighed, like everything was her fault. None of this was her fault. I would take all the blame. “I broke it off.”

  “Are you sure?” I couldn’t help feeling she was making a mistake. As much as I wanted her to stay, I couldn’t stop myself from trying to make her go. “Ian is going places. He’ll go to college, major in something responsible. I have no future.”

  “I don’t buy any of that.” She reached up and ran her thumb back and forth across my cheek, like she was trying to rub something away.

  “I don’t deserve you,” I whispered.

  “No one ever deserves anyone else,” she whispered back. “You can’t earn a person. They’re a gift.”

  I wanted to believe her. More than anything, I wanted to be enough for her. But no matter how tightly I clung to things, I could feel everything crumbling beneath me.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  IAN

  I locked myself in my room. Luke wasn’t the only one who could hide behind barricades. Luke wasn’t the only one who was going to get what he wanted. It was time I stopped waiting for things to go my way and started making sure they did. No matter what.

  I had to stop wandering in the dark. Mom wouldn’t tell me anything—she was still trying to protect Luke. I didn’t understand it. I was so careful. I did everything right and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Mom was still looking out for Luke. Jenna was still looking at Luke. There was hardly anything left for me to put back together.

  I’d almost had everything—Jenna in my arms, her lips on mine.

  And then Luke had taken it. My anger caused my head to pound, and I closed my eyes and let the ache steer me through the maze. Last night at Jenna’s, I’d heard the door unlock and been too afraid to look in and find it. I wasn’t afraid anymore.

  I turned corners and followed empty corridors. Strips of shadow and light followed more corners and shadow. Always shadows. The corridors were getting shorter and the corners sharper. I caught a glimpse of something moving and began to run.

  The maze twisted away from me. There was fabric, then nothing. A flash of arm, then shadows.

  I ran past a window. There was a shattered fence and a broken tree. Another corner was followed by another and another. And the door. I pulled up short. I’d found the door with the strip of light. This time, it was cracked open a little, enough that the light lit up the center of the maze. Not enough to see what was on the other side.

  But I couldn’t open it all the way because the shadow was there, sitting cross-legged in front of the door. And I knew her. I’d seen her at the lake. At Jenna’s. But I’d known her before. Of course I did. The girl from the picture. Mandy. Her name made me shudder. Then I realized the trembling was outside of me. The maze was crumbling.

  LUKE

  Ian was standing outside my room when I came up the stairs.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said. He didn’t sound like Ian at all.

  “We’re sorry.” It was sort of the truth; it was kind of a lie.

  “We?” Ian flinched. “Since when did it become we?”

  I sighed. “What do you want from me, Ian?”

  “I want you to leave her the hell alone.”

  “I can’t do that.” Can’t. Won’t. It was all the same thing.

  I could feel Ian’s fury the same way I’d felt his pain and fear when we were kids. But this was much stronger than those feelings had ever been.

  “She’s mine,” he said.

  “She doesn’t belong to either one of us.” That I was sure of.

  “Well I’m sure as hell not going to let you have her.” He shoved me hard in the chest, pushing me out of the hallway and into my room. “Don’t see Jenna again,” Ian threatened.

  “Or what?” I didn’t know who the hell he thought he was. He’d never been the one in charge.

  “Why don’t you push me and see,” he said. I didn’t like his look, the way his voice hinted at something dangerous. He sounded desperate. “I’m doing everything I can to keep this family from completely falling apart. You’ve done everything you could to make sure we did. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of my way.” Ian took a deep breath. “Remember Mandy?” he asked.

  I went cold. I hadn’t heard that name in over a year. I didn’t want to now.

  “I do,” Ian continued. “Mandy was mine. I remember how she died. And that you killed her.”

>   His words reached into my chest and squeezed my lungs. Lights popped behind my eyes.

  “How could you do this again?” Ian asked. “I’m your brother.” He shook his head, disgust filling his face. “You hurt people. Don’t destroy her too.”

  He didn’t have to say her name—it was the only name that mattered to me, and she was the only other person who inhabited my desolate little world.

  Ian’s smile was sly as he pointed at me. “I know you,” he whispered, “inside and out. I know just exactly how to hurt you.” He stalked into his room. “I learned from the best.”

  He slammed the door, and the frayed string that connected us snapped.

  * * *

  I went back downstairs, no longer tired, no longer interested in being holed up in my room. Mom was just getting in from work. She looked exhausted. She looked older than she had a few months ago, and I knew it was my fault. She stopped in the hall, her face hopeful. “Ian?”

  When I shook my head, her shoulders drooped forward. She turned her face away from me. “Where’s Ian?”

  “In his room,” I told her.

  Mom sighed. I wanted to wrap my arms around her. I wanted to bury my face in her shoulder like I had when I was little. But I was afraid. Thinking she would turn away wasn’t easy to take. Knowing it for certain would be unbearable. Most of the time I didn’t care what people thought about me. It was how I’d ended up where I was in the first place. But I hated disappointing my mom. I knew that I’d put that sorrow on her face. I wished more than anything that I could take it back. Sometimes I wished it so hard that my chest hurt. But I couldn’t go back and change things. I could never change the fact that the accident was my fault. That someone died. That I lost my parents’ love. And that they were justified in it.

  “I’m going to bed,” Mom said. She couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me for very long.

  “Why won’t you talk to me?” I asked.

  Her eyes filled with tears, and I prayed they wouldn’t spill over. “Because it hurts too much.”