I think Mom wants us to walk on the proverbial eggshells. But I’ve never been good with subtlety. I want to throw the eggs at the walls and let them smash to bits. I want the house to look as terrible as it feels on days when we get home and he’s waiting for us with violence in his eyes. I’ve often wondered, Does he need us here? A tree falls in the woods. . . . Where would his rage go with no one to witness it?
Because I feel like I’m always here when the tree falls, and I don’t just hear it, I’m crushed by it. Branches snap my ribs. Leaves fill my nose and mouth until I choke. I hear the tree groan and rumble as it transforms into a monster.
Mom finally gets the last piece of glass out of my foot.
“I know he wasn’t always like this, Mom. I remember. But he’s like this now.”
I scoot off the counter and wobble upstairs on the sides of my feet, careful not to get blood on the carpets.
To be honest, I think he’d yell even if we weren’t here.
He just likes it better when we are.
Auburn, Pennsylvania
September 15
CROW POPULATION:
16,980
Chapter Nine
LIAM MCNAMARA FINDS ME AT LUNCH. He folds his long body into the booth across from me, sitting next to Sofia.
“How goes it, ladies?” Liam asks, acting as though this behavior is perfectly normal.
Sofia meets my eyes across the table, and they narrow. I’ve been keeping something from her, and the jig is up.
“Tater tots,” I say, pushing my tray away. “It goes cold tater tots, Liam.”
“Yum,” he says, snatching two off the plate. “I don’t mind them cold.”
“Cold like an ice queen?” I ask.
Liam looks up from the tray.
“Brody is an ass. And I told him exactly that after class yesterday.”
“Yeah, he is.” I pull out my newspaper binder and flip through it.
“Seriously, and I’ve never laughed at the stupid ice queen thing.” I stop flipping and look up, trying to figure out how serious he is right now.
“Hey there, remember me?” Sofia asks, waving a hand in front of my face. “What happened?”
“Brody Thompson was being a jerk in lit class,” Liam says.
“Oh, well. That’s hardly news to anyone.” Sofia rolls her eyes.
“Thank you for saying something to Brody.” I don’t speak up in class much, and I haven’t spoken to Brody since I turned him down, so it was really nice to have support yesterday.
“No problem,” he says. “So . . . wanna go out with me sometime?”
Sofia chokes a little on her chocolate milk.
“Um, sorry, but no thank you.”
“Wow,” Liam says. “You aren’t even gonna think about it.”
Just for a moment, I imagine bringing Liam to my house. A wave of nausea hits me.
“I don’t see the point of dating right now.”
“Wait, you don’t date at all?”
“I have to focus on getting into college.”
As Liam and I talk, I try to ignore the wild gestures that Sofia is making across the table. Thank God Liam is doing this thing where he focuses only on me. Forget the charm, or how damn funny he is, or those kind eyes. It’s his attentiveness that I find nice. So different. He’s really looking at me and listening to what I say.
That’s what makes me want to say yes.
“There’s no chance you aren’t getting into college, Leighton. Don’t you have, like, perfect grades? You’re super smart.”
The blunt compliment surprises me.
“It could be fun,” Liam adds.
I fiddle with the bracelet on my arm—a leather cuff bracelet with my initials on it. Campbell and Juniper each have one, too. Our grandpa made them for us just before we lost him, a few years ago. It reminds me of him, and my sisters.
But then my thoughts inevitably shift to our house, and I turn my happy little heart back into stone.
“I don’t have time for fun. I have homework to do.” That’s true, at least. Senior year, advanced placement classes, college applications, newspaper. How can anyone have a social life when we have six hours of homework every night?
“You can just tell me I’m not your type,” Liam says. “I can take it.”
“You aren’t my type, Liam,” I say.
Liam blinks a few times, then lets out a long, low whistle. His perfectly pursed lips almost make me take back my rejection.
“Wow. That, uh, that cut me deep, Barnes. Cut me real deep.” He sighs and leans forward, resting his forehead on his hands on the lunch table.
“Liam?” I ask, and nod at Sofia, who reaches over to shake him a bit. Sofia can’t stop giggling, and it’s taking everything I’ve got to not cave in and laugh, too. Liam sits up again, stone-faced and refusing to break his character of heartbroken teen. I give him my best I’m-not-falling-for-your-games look.
“Gotta respect your decision. Might take me years to get over this moment, though, Barnes. Decades. I will pine. I won’t go full Romeo, but I’m thinking the word catatonic might apply here,” Liam says as he slides out of the booth.
“You are ridiculous,” I say, but my reproach is weak coming through the gigantic smile on my face.
“All right,” Sofia says. “Now please go away so we can talk about you and I can convince this amazing, stupid girl to go out with you.”
“There’s hope?” Liam says. “I’ll take it. See ya in English class, Barnes.”
He grabs one last cold tater tot, tossing it in the air and catching it in his mouth as he walks away.
“The way he calls you by your last name makes me feel like I’m intruding on something . . . intimate.”
“Ew, Sofia. Don’t say intimate.”
“Whatever. It’s true. Do you hear the way he says your name? He likes you, Leighton.”
Dammit.
Every interaction with him is so fun. And light. I feel happier talking to him at our lockers than in any other part of my day. And in a parallel universe, I would recognize this for what it is: I have a colossal crush on Liam. Maybe in that universe we could date. But in this one, no such luck. I have a countdown. A deadline. Less than a year to get things fixed at home so that Campbell and Juniper are safe. Or I can’t go.
The last thing in the world I need is to set myself up for one more heartbreak. Because in my living room there is a framed photo of Auburn High’s Homecoming King and Queen from nineteen years ago, and it’s a constant reminder of what ever after really looks like. Maybe classic lit had it right all along, and the romances just haven’t gotten to the real end of the story yet.
If you wait long enough, all hearts get broken.
Chapter Ten
THE CROWS DON’T STOP COMING. I feel their shining eyes watching us wherever we go. And every day, the eyes multiply by two and two and two, until the twos form thousands. They perch on fences. They cling to trees. They watch from rain gutters and church steeples and broken weather vanes spinning on barns. The rusted roosters turn not with the wind, but with the inconsistent, shifting weight of feathers.
One afternoon they arrive like a black cloud over Auburn, thousands at once.
I hear the complaints whispered everywhere I go—in the grocery store line, and by the secretaries in the school office. A mess. A nuisance. Why don’t they leave? And maybe it’s because we already had Joe, the strangeness of the bird a constant presence in our lives, but I find that I like the birds. I like their noise and their watchful eyes. I like the way they pay attention to the people of Auburn.
The first time I noticed Joe was two years ago this autumn; I remember because we’d just buried Grandpa, and even though our view hadn’t changed, everything felt different. We used to stay with my grandparents all the time. Their old farmhouse was our second home, our safe retreat from my father’s anger. It always worked in a cycle—the rage, the apologies, a few weeks or sometimes just days of peace, and then the buildup wo
uld begin again. And Mom was usually good at reading those signs, and casually suggesting we go stay with her parents for a night or two. But occasionally even she missed the signs, and we wouldn’t know the storm was coming until it was on top of us and Mom was ushering us out to her car and bundling us into car seats and showing up at my grandparents’ house in the dark of the night. Sometimes we would arrive crying and still scared, but most of my memories of our huddled walk into their home are marked by silence. A quiet understanding among the adults, and a familiar acceptance for us girls. Besides, by the time we got there, we were feeling safe.
But then two years ago a heart attack wrecked that carefully orchestrated balance. Grandpa was gone, and Nana slipped fast. Without Grandpa there filling in the gaps, we realized that Nana wasn’t doing very well on her own. So their house was sold to pay for an apartment in assisted living. I begged Mom to leave him then. To move us in with Nana, so we could take care of her.
When she refused, we didn’t speak for a month.
We visit Nana every few weeks, but I like to supplement those visits, so sometimes I tell Mom I’m staying late after school, and I wait on the corner for a bus that takes me thirty minutes to the neighboring town of Lincoln, where Nana’s apartment is. Today everything is gray outside the bus window: the clouds overhead, the building she lives in. There is a flash of black and gray on the building’s sign. Joe. It isn’t the first time he’s followed me here.
I step from gray into yellow. The walls are goldenrod, and in the waiting room is an ancient sofa covered in lemons, faded and soft on their edges where the fabric has been worn. I sign in, and the receptionist waves me up, recognizing me.
Nana greets me with a long hug. “Leighton! What a lovely surprise. It’s been weeks since you last visited.”
“Hi, Nana. I’m sorry. School started.”
“Don’t you dare apologize. Let’s have tea. When’s your bus?”
I put her kettle on for tea and crack her windows open for fresh air.
“An hour,” I say, and settle on the chair across from her. Some days she’s every ounce the woman I’ve always known, and today is one of those days. Her mind sharp and her memory untouched. “Mom doesn’t know today.”
She nods her understanding. She knows I sneak here.
“The girls?” she asks.
“The same,” I say.
“Your mom?”
“The same,” I say, but my voice catches. It’s all the same.
Actually, that’s not true anymore; it’s worse.
I don’t tell Nana that part.
“Tell me about school,” she says, and our chat is easy and warm. There’s a lot I miss about their old farmhouse and, of course, Grandpa, but these last two years have brought Nana and me closer, too. There’s a softness in our understanding of things at home and my parents. I don’t have to be guarded in how I speak. It’s how I imagine talking to Mom would feel if we didn’t have my father like a wedge between us, making us dance around the most crucial thing, the thing we can’t talk about. But with Nana, there are no topics to avoid.
Our hour goes too fast.
I clean our mugs and straighten her kitchenette. I close her windows. It’s just a sampling of what we had at her old home, but the warmth is the same. The smells. A hint of her favorite perfume on everything.
“Things will get better, Leighton,” she says as she hugs me goodbye.
“I know,” I say. It’s an easy lie for both of us.
“Before your grandpa passed, I used to pray to God every night that you girls would stay with us. Where you would be safe.”
“And after Grandpa died? Did you stop praying?”
“I started praying to your grandpa instead. I’m hoping he has some pull up there. I keep waiting for some message from him.”
“I’ll look for a message, too.”
“You do that, dear.”
And I do. On the walk to the bus stop, and on the ride home.
There is one highway into Auburn. When we cross into the town limits, there is a large green sign that reads, “Welcome to Auburn, Pennsylvania. Population: 2,378.” And at the bottom of the sign, the town’s slogan: Auburn Born, Auburn Proud.
I keep looking for a message from Grandpa, some hint of that feeling I always got when I stepped into their home. That things would be okay.
But when I get off the bus and look around Auburn, there’s nothing but crows.
Chapter Eleven
I THINK I LOVE BRAND-NEW NOTEBOOKS for the same reason people love babies. For a moment in time, they are perfect. Unblemished. Pure potential.
Then we make it our job in life to ruin them.
We add to them, encumber them. Erase and try again, never quite able to fully obliterate the original mark. We fill them up with our words and wishes and desires. It is an imperfect, imprecise process, and we don’t always get it right.
I got what I wanted for the newspaper this year: my own column. But our first issue will be published online at the end of the week, and I haven’t figured out a theme yet. Sofia has sports, so she’s been busy cheerleading and covering football games. Our team is the high school equivalent of a Greek tragedy every week. Everyone is hoping for a better ending than what is delivered to them, yet they keep coming back for more. You wouldn’t know they lose by how this town loves the game, though. We almost won state once nineteen years ago, and our football players are still treated like All-American Gods.
I think of Liam McNamara.
And then I deliberately don’t think of him.
I tap my ultra-sharpened pencil on the blank page in front of me. The tip breaks off. I side-eye the pencil sharpener on the other side of the room. No hurry, brain. No important things to write. No looming deadline. I drop the pencil and hit the power button on my computer’s monitor instead—our newspaper is operating on some ancient behemoth desktops—and wait for it to power up. My desk faces the windows, and outside are the baseball fields. They are covered in crows. I can’t hear them from in here, but I see their open beaks, and I know they are cawing. The crows are always cawing.
Sofia sits on my desk.
“Hey,” she starts. “Were you ever gonna tell me that you and Liam are a thing?”
“We aren’t a thing,” I protest, but Sofia holds up her hand.
“I didn’t say what kind of thing, but you most certainly are a thing, because that at lunch yesterday was not a nothing.”
“Sorry, Sofia . . .” I stand and stretch. Maybe movement will help me figure out this column. “What are you working on?”
“Don’t change the subject,” she says. “What is going on with you and Liam?”
“We’ve just been talking—” I pause while Sofia squeals. I smile. Leighton alone would put the whole Liam thing in a tiny box and not open it until later, if at all. Leighton alone doesn’t have time to think about a guy when she has an article due. She has a portfolio to round out if she wants to get into one of the top journalism schools in the country. Acceptance to college—and escape from this town—depends on that tried-and-true Leighton focus. No distractions.
But Leighton with Sofia is different. A little less intense. A little more seventeen. This Leighton opens the box, and peers inside. What is going on with Liam?
“Our lockers are on top of each other,” I explain.
“Dirty,” Sofia says.
I raise my eyebrows. I’ll turn this car around.
“Sorry. Go on,” Sofia says.
“So we started talking between classes, and we have lit together, and, I don’t know, he’s so smart. Did you know how smart he is?” I circle my desk while we talk. I walk over and crack the window. Now I hear the crows. The cawing is louder than I expected.
“It’s finally happened,” Sofia says. She sighs behind me.
“What has?” I ask over the sound of the birds.
“My little Layyyton has a guy!”
“I don’t!” I say.
“Only because you hav
en’t said yes, yet. Which you will.”
“I won’t.”
“Loooooovebirds,” Sofia serenades as she retreats to her own desk, her mission complete. Who needs instruments of torture to get information when you could just send in Sofia Roman? She could make anyone sing, even a raspy, mangy old—
There it is. An idea for my column blooms in my mind, taking shape quickly. I’m going to write about the crows. They don’t seem to be going anywhere, and their numbers have already been newsworthy. Our local news ran a segment on them last week. I could pick up where it left off, following the numbers, interviewing a bird expert. Maybe I can even figure out what the hell they’re doing here.
While I wait to pitch Mrs. Riley my column idea, I scan the news bulletin board that hangs on the wall. All things Auburn and anything potentially newsworthy goes up here. A pink flyer pinned to the corner of the board catches my eye. “Scholarship” is in bold letters across the top of the page.
Auburn Township Senior Scholarship Essay Contest. Shit. The scholarship is $5,000.
My dad wants me to go to state college. It’s where he would have been if he hadn’t lost his football scholarship. It’s where Mom would have been if she hadn’t decided to stay here with Dad when he proposed. But I hate it. Maybe I could have liked it if I’d found it organically, but they’ve been pushing this school since I was in diapers. I want to get out of rural Pennsylvania. I want to live in a city. And study journalism at one of the best schools for it: New York University.
We’ll never have the money for it. If I do get in, it’ll be on scholarships and loans. Which means every little bit of money I can put toward it will help.
I scan down the flyer. “Submit two thousand words answering the following prompt: What does Auburn born, Auburn proud mean to you?”
Chapter Twelve
IN SCHOOL WE ARE TAUGHT TO begin our papers with a thesis statement.
I like the logic of it. The structure. I write one sentence, and every word thereafter must support that claim. I never could get lost in poetry, the way it can’t seem to follow rules. Mom likes that about it. The sentence fragments and the way it shrugs off proper grammar like an ill-fitting coat. The way words are felt, until that’s all that’s left. No reason. No logic. Not even self-preservation. Mom’s thesis statement became, “My life has meaning because he is in it.” And now every move she makes supports that claim.
If These Wings Could Fly Page 4