I got into my car and drove away, rubbing my tired eyes and biting back a yawn. The lake gleamed like molten gold beneath the sun and made my eyes water. I would go home and sleep, secure in the knowledge that I could be alone until early evening. I couldn’t bear the idea of spinning yet another confection of lies for my mother. It would have dissipated the newness that lay on my skin. I had witnessed something wildly profound, and I wanted some time to myself before the mundane details of life contaminated everything with doubt.
—
I slept until 2 p.m. When I woke, I couldn’t help luxuriating in a quiet house, sun-warmed blankets and the pleasurable half-awake consciousness of afternoon naps. My phone showed a missed call and a couple of texts from Tom. I didn’t feel up to talking to him yet.
I curled up in bed and read the texts. The first said, “Hey, I saw your note but why’d you leave without waking me up? Hope we’re cool.” The second had come an hour later. “Are you mad at me? Everything okay?” I sighed and texted back. “Don’t worry, everything’s cool! I just didn’t want to get caught by my mom.” I hoped he wouldn’t text back again. I needed some time to think.
After a quick shower, I slid into my car, unsure of where I was going. Now that I had promised my mother that I would treat school as a daily (as opposed to weekly) requirement, I wanted to use what remained of the weekend productively.
Without even realizing it, I found myself heading out of town. I drove past where they found Helen, the snow now completely gone from the wooded path. It made me think of what I had seen the night before, and I felt a chill pass through my body.
I ended up back at the Trapper. I had to try again to talk to Alan, no matter how dangerous my last attempt had been. This time, I had come earlier in the day, and I had no intention of trying another stakeout. But I couldn’t leave this aspect of the investigation unfinished. Alan had to know something useful. I just hoped he wasn’t dangerous.
There were only a few cars in the parking lot, a logical result of spring chasing away the snowmobile crowd. The bar looked pitiful, squatting in a clearing full of churned-up mud. As I walked toward the building, I spotted Alan’s rusted truck nestled up against the side of the bar. Instead of going inside, I headed to the back, hoping Alan smoked as frequently as Tom. I had a flash of memory: Tom smoking a cigarette in his bedroom last night. I felt myself flush as I thought about hooking up with him. It had been such a strange night, and I wasn’t sure what confused me more: ghosts or boys. I did my best to push Tom out of my thoughts. I needed to focus on Alan.
I saw Alan standing there and couldn’t help smiling. Today was my lucky day…or Alan’s unlucky one, depending on the perspective. Alan was wearing a thin sweatshirt, the cotton rubbed raw from continuous wear. He was obviously cold; he had wrapped his free arm around himself as he rigidly brought the cigarette to his mouth.
Alan saw me and tensed, ready to run again. It was almost laughable, a twentysomething guy running away from a girl like me. I wondered if Jerry or Roy had mentioned that I was allegedly his girlfriend. I doubted it.
“Wait!” I said, throwing my hands up. “I know you didn’t do anything wrong!” I didn’t know that, but I figured if I shouted, “I think you’re a murderer” there was no chance of him sticking around to talk.
“What?” Alan asked suspiciously. “Who the fuck are you?” He was still in a running stance, poised to startle at any moment.
“I-I-know about Helen,” I stuttered.
“Don’t know nothing about that,” Alan muttered, turning away. Without thinking, I grabbed his arm. His free hand twitched, as if he was going to strike me. Our eyes met, and I saw the wildness in his face, the anger he was wrestling to control.
“Sorry,” I said, releasing his arm. “Please, please just talk to me for a second. I know you were friends. I know you didn’t hurt her. I-I just want to know about her last day,” I finished softly.
Alan’s shoulders fell and he slumped against the wall. I watched him ash his cigarette between his battered white running shoes. He wasn’t saying anything, but the fact that he wasn’t leaving was promising.
“Why the hell do you care?” he asked. He didn’t seem angry, just curious.
“I just do,” I said finally. “I’ve learned stuff about her and I just want to know how it ended.”
“What’d you learn?” Alan asked suspiciously. I bit my lip and tried to form a few inklings into a coherent thought.
“I know that she was a good person. I know”—I flashed back to Jake talking about meeting her in the hospital—“that Helen always took care of people. Especially the people others didn’t notice.”
A tiny smile shifted the cigarette on Alan’s lips.
“Yeah, that’s Helen.”
“How did you two meet?” I asked carefully. I was slowly feeling my way around Alan, uncertain which topics were off-limits.
“Uh…fuck,” Alan said, running a hand through his inky hair. “Back when I was a foster kid. She was nice to me. I hung out with her older cousins, but she was just a nice kid,” he said shortly, his eyes looking past me. “Foster care fucking sucks. You get beat a lot. If someone’s nice, it sticks out. Uh, I fought a lot so kids were scared of me.”
“But Helen wasn’t bothered?” I asked.
Alan shook his head. “Nah, she wasn’t scared of me.”
“So you grew up together?” I asked. A shadow passed over Alan’s face. I could almost see the bad memories ricochet around his skull.
“Nope. Kept moving foster homes. Nobody wanted me because I flipped out a lot.”
“Oh…,” I said, my heart sinking as I imagined a new scenario: Alan, in an uncontrollable rage, attacking Helen in his car. He seemed placid enough now, but the ropy muscles of his arms looked like they could do some serious damage.
“Went to juvie a few times. For fires and smashing shit. Then I got sent to jail for beating the shit out of a guy.”
“So when did you see Helen again?” I asked.
“When I got out, I was homeless. Almost froze to death one night. Woke up in the fucking hospital and Helen was there, talking away and happy to see me,” Alan said quietly.
It was hard to believe that he had once been homeless. It made me look at his current lifestyle, with a truck and a job, in a much more positive light.
“Helen kept coming by after I got better. We’d hang out. She didn’t tell her mom that she was doing it. I get it; I’m a fucking dirtbag!”
“She sounds like she was a good friend to you,” I said. Alan’s features twisted, and I knew that there was something complicated in their story, a secret that made him nervous.
“Yeah. She, like, believed I could do shit. She was so fucking proud when I got this job,” Alan said, a smile trying but failing to melt the tense corners of his mouth.
“And she kept visiting you?” I asked. Alan nodded and lit another cigarette. His hand was shaking and the cigarettes in the half-full pack bounced around like jumping beans.
“Yeah, every couple weeks. She’d bus out here and hang out at the bar while I worked. Then I’d use my break to drive her to the rez.”
“The bar owners didn’t care that she was underage?” I asked. Alan shook his head.
“Fuck no. People do what they want out here. Everyone knew Helen was in the Trapper that night, but they weren’t gonna call the fucking cops.”
I nodded thoughtfully. It really was a different world in the bush. Out here, it seemed like people had receded into the forest, coming out only to drink. Some people lived off the land: hunting and fishing (often illegally on Crown property), running traplines and squatting in abandoned hunting cabins. But others made their living in shadier ways. I knew there were meth labs out here. Sometimes you spotted the ones that had blown up, leaving behind a pile of charred rubble and pine trees with scorched tips. This was where people disappeared to avoid all manner of inconveniences, from cops to child support.
Crimes didn’t always get solve
d in Northern Ontario. People had a tendency to disappear up here without a trace. It was as if the city’s hold on the land was tenuous, and every now and then a person was just absorbed back into the wilderness. A whole family had disappeared in the seventies, their dinner left half eaten on the kitchen table. A college kid from down south disappeared on the walk home from a bar. Afterward, his heartbroken father had moved to Thunder Creek and papered the city with missing posters for years. This was the sort of place where unsolved crimes lasted a lifetime, the wild landscape silent about the dark things it had witnessed. Eventually, the mysteries were woven into the lives of the Creekers. But I didn’t want Helen to become just another ghost story.
“What happened that day?” I asked finally. Alan didn’t say anything for a long time. I studied his face, trying to decide if Helen had been right to trust him.
“I always knew Helen liked me,” Alan said finally. He shook his head and sighed. “But I’d have been shit for her. And, uh…she wasn’t my type,” he said, his cheeks reddening, like he was ashamed that he hadn’t fallen in love with her.
If this had been a fictional story, Alan and Helen would have fallen in love. But the uncomfortable truth Alan was avoiding was that Helen hadn’t been very pretty. She might have been the kind of girl who blossoms in her twenties, the kind who hides her yearbooks and experiences regret when looking at old school photos. But the sad fact was that Helen was overweight, with bushy hair and unremarkable features. Sometimes you see two people and you think how everything would have been so much easier if they’d just fallen in love. Unfortunately, chemistry isn’t born of convenience. If it were, I probably wouldn’t have a crush on Tom, a guy who wasn’t that into me and was hell-bent on leaving Thunder Creek as soon as he could.
“Did she ever tell you?” I asked.
“Not until that day. Helen showed up, dressed kind of slutty, with makeup and shit. And she asked for a beer.”
“Was she a drinker?” I asked, my head aching at the thought of alcohol. I had momentarily forgotten how crazy the night before had been.
“Nope. Fucking gave it to her, though. Then, when I go to drive her home…” Alan’s voice trailed off and he grimaced as he sucked on his cigarette.
“Helen kissed me and said ‘I love you,’ ” he said, staring at his feet. “I didn’t do shit. I just sat there.”
“But she wanted more from you, didn’t she?” I asked. I could picture the awkwardness of the moment. Helen, dolled up in cheap makeup and a top that had sat in the back of her closet for ages after she impulsively bought it at the mall. Alan, nervous and afraid to ruin his first real friendship. It was heartbreaking from all perspectives.
“Ah…fuck. I shouldn’t be talking to you,” Alan muttered, kicking a stray soda can. I didn’t say anything and eventually he continued.
“Helen wanted to hook up,” Alan said, his voice dripping with embarrassment. “But I stopped her. I said she was just my friend.”
“How did she react?” I asked, imagining how humiliated I would have felt in her place. Putting yourself out there and being rejected by a guy was a teenage girl’s greatest fear. Most girls would rather spend years convincing themselves that no boy actually liked them rather than act on the assumption that one of them did.
“Shit…she started crying and saying sorry. I said it was cool but she didn’t believe me.”
Alan’s voice began to creak and I realized that his eyes were glistening with tears. One by one, they fell on the rubber tops of his running shoes, speckling the surface like raindrops. It was surprising to see someone who acted so tough do something so vulnerable.
“I wanted to drive her but she said she wanted to take the bus. I let her go. She was so fucking hurt by me that I thought she’d be better off,” Alan said quietly. He glanced up at me, wiping his tears with the ratty sleeve of his sweatshirt. Our eyes met, and I could see the bitter regret that stained his memories of Helen.
“Last time I ever saw Helen, she was walking away from my truck. She was crying so fucking hard. I went back to work and felt like shit all night.”
“When did you find out that the buses out here don’t run at night?” I asked quietly.
“Not till they found her fucking body,” he said, tears spilling over again.
I stood there, letting him cry. Alan had been keeping all of these secrets for weeks, most likely because he was terrified the police would think he murdered her. I knew that he didn’t do it, though; his story fit perfectly with everything else I had learned about Helen.
“You know, maybe you should talk to Helen’s mom,” I said. “She’s a nice person, and I think she likes to hear from people who cared about Helen.”
“Are you fucking kidding? She’d hate me!” Alan said, wiping his face with his forearm. “Helen’s fucking dead because of me!”
“No, Helen’s killer is the reason she’s dead,” I said. “You’re just someone she left behind.”
—
The sun began to set as I followed the highway back to town. My car slowly fell below the speed limit. There was no reason to hurry home when the hills were painted golden and the breeze brushed against my skin like silk. It was days like this that made me understand why anyone tolerated the winters of Northern Ontario. The glorious summers never receded far enough into their memory to allow them to leave.
But this winter had been hard, and people had died. This winter had taught me that every life mattered and that losing a person was about more than simple substitution. Every life mattered because every life contained a million connections. Each disappearance sent an incomprehensible shockwave through a web of people. We all lost something when a life was taken, even if it was only a chance to be connected to that person in the future. Helen hadn’t known that she’d already had her last summer. It made me feel guilty to think that even though we’d been born in the same year, I’d already been given more time than her.
I sighed as I passed the sign for Thunder Creek. I could see Helen stumbling out of Alan’s car, humiliated and sobbing. I could see her thumbing a ride, her tear-soaked face irresistible to a predator. I had similar visions of the last night I saw Chloe, and I knew they’d both suffered in their own way. Sometimes I felt like I focused on finding Chloe’s mitten because it was the easiest part of the story to investigate. I wanted to find Chloe, but I was also scared of what might have happened. So I looked for a piece of her instead, some reassurance that everything was okay. Sometimes I dreamed about going away to a tropical island someday and seeing a mitten half buried in the sand. I would glance up and see Chloe walking toward me, older and more tanned, telling me that I could put all of my fears behind me because everything had turned out okay.
There was something so tragic about the acts of desperate girls. My helpless heart wished that I could write a different ending to the story, that I could have kept Chloe from disappearing and delivered Helen safely home. But trusting the wrong person wasn’t the only kind of desperate act. Wishing for the impossible could break you just as swiftly. Whether you wanted someone to love you or someone to protect you, it was hard to be a girl in need.
The forest ended behind me like a sweater slipping off my shoulders. The city streetlights made the golden sky seem even more luminescent. I turned off the highway and rolled up my windows. I was almost home.
Chapter Thirty
March 27, 2006
Monday morning. I walked down the hallway to my locker, still mulling over the most eventful weekend of my life. It had been hard to sleep the night before, with Helen’s story and the ghosts I’d seen competing for space in my head. I also couldn’t stop thinking about Tom, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t help wishing that I hadn’t run out that morning. Alone in my room and safe from any real consequences, I wondered what would have happened if I’d stayed in Tom’s bed. Would we have had sex? Did I want to?
Tom had texted me again before school, asking if I wanted to skip class and meet up, but I said I had
a test that I couldn’t miss. I knew I couldn’t dodge him forever, but I needed a little more time to gather my thoughts. Everything was so confusing right now.
There was a clump of people milling around my locker as I arrived. They turned toward me, the middle of the crowd clearing like a set of doors swinging open. Their faces searched mine for a reaction, but I just sighed and pushed past.
Someone had written “Psycho” in Sharpie all over my locker door. The printing style and color varied, making it seem as though a number of hands had taken part. The blue and black writing bruised the yellow locker from top to bottom. In the chaos of the weekend, I had forgotten all about slapping Taylor. Now, though, that memory lapse made me feel even crazier. I had hit a girl on Friday and it hadn’t even stuck with me. Maybe I was a psycho.
What could I do? I needed things in my locker, and I wasn’t about to let my audience see me skulk away. I took a deep breath and unlocked the door. I kept my expression blank as I carefully hung up my jacket and backpack. I purposefully moved slowly, and by the time I turned around, the crowd had dispersed.
I didn’t hear a word of the lesson in English. At the end of the class, I handed in my homework and left. Taylor, Devon and some of their friends were standing just outside the door. The smirk on Taylor’s face told me beyond a shadow of a doubt whose idea my locker art had been. She must have spent her entire weekend thinking of ways to respond. Vandalizing my locker wasn’t exactly the work of a master criminal, but Taylor was nothing more than a poor man’s Gossip Girl. But the fact that Devon was there made the whole thing worse. Everything had been so much better before he’d hurt my best friend.
The Lives of Desperate Girls Page 19