Rudy suddenly turns back to me. “So how do you wanna do this? And do you want to go to the party after? I got my mom’s car . . .”
I give him a look but there’s no time to talk. It’s seven forty. Chris, always punctual, should be here by eight.
I’m suddenly in a rush to have this done.
“No party. I just need to get this over with before I chicken out.” I hold out my hand. “What did you get?”
Rudy frowns. “Chicken out? What, like, stay with Golden Boy?”
“Leave it, Rudy, and give me the stuff,” I snap.
He tips his head, and, without warning, gives me a gentle look. Like we’re friends. “You sure?” he asks carefully.
I bite back the urge to scream at him and push my open hand toward him. Almost reluctantly, he pulls a baggie out of his pocket with four pills inside and digs one out.
“Give me two.” I snap my fingers.
One of his eyebrows slides up. “Tully, these are pretty strong.”
“What the hell is wrong with you tonight, Rudy?” I step closer to him, make myself mad. Mad is strong. Mad is determined. Mad won’t back out at the last minute.
Mad needs those pills right now.
Rudy huffs, but he digs deeper into the baggie and drops a second pill into my waiting palm. “Whatever you want,” he says in a husky voice that make my bones shudder.
I take the pills dry, swallowing a few times to make sure they’ll stay down. There’s a certain release that comes with knowing what I’ve done. These perfect little discs will take me away from here. The rest will be easier.
Usually at this point, I’d grab Rudy, or he’d grab me, and we’d make out. But this time, he’s watching me, hands back in his pockets.
“What?”
He takes a step closer. “Just looking at you. You look good.”
I bristle. “I didn’t invite you here to bond, okay? I want to escape. I want away from all this. So you can either come here, or you can leave and I’ll enjoy these myself.”
It takes him a beat to respond, and for second I’m afraid that he might leave. But then he steps forward and grabs me at the waist with both hands. His lips crash down on mine, and we’re there, in that place we’ve been so many times. I can already sense the tiny threads of the drug seeping into my veins. It makes me feel like my body’s slowly bloating. Like maybe I’ll inflate and blow away.
But something is tethering me to the moment, holding me down. Usually Rudy’s kiss—he’s a good kisser, I’ll give him that—lights that fire of desire in me. He used to make me feel sexy. Wanted. But right now, as his breath quickens, and his fingers dig tighter and crawl higher, there’s no heat. No rush.
It’ll come. When the pills kick in.
I try to think about the things we’ve done before, the things I liked. Try to enjoy myself. But it feels wrong. Touching anyone but Chris feels wrong. I keep seeing his concern, his desire, his love. And suddenly, I’m crying.
Oh, hell.
I grab at the front of Rudy’s shirt, ready to push him away, to end this charade, when another voice cuts through the air between us.
“What is this?”
Rudy lurches back. I whip my head around, every nerve in my body jangling alarm. Chris is standing in the doorway. He dives across the floor like a hawk, his fingers curled to claws, his jaw so tight the line could have been drawn by a ruler.
“Get your hands off her!” He grabs Rudy, throws him across the room, away from me.
Then Chris is pushing Rudy up into the wall by his neck, lips peeled back from his teeth like a rabid dog. “I will kill you,” he seethes, and for a second I think he means it.
“I asked him to come,” I whisper. They don’t hear me. Rudy is swearing and choking. “I asked him to come!” I croak louder.
Chris freezes in place. Rudy rolls his eyes toward me, then back to Chris, twisting his wrist, trying to loosen his grip.
“What did you say?” Chris’s voice is hoarse.
“I invited him,” I repeat, wiping away the tears, determined never to let them out again.
Chris drops Rudy like he burns. Rudy sags, bends over, sucking in air. Chris steps back, eyes widening in horror. He hasn’t turned to look at me. His shoulders heave up and down.
“You asked him here . . . for this?” His voice slides up on the last word.
“Yes.” I make the word clear, sharp.
Rudy wipes his mouth, rasps, “She isn’t worth it, dude.”
Chris shudders.
Rudy shakes his head and stomps toward the door, catching Chris’s shoulder as he passes. A second later, the front door slams.
I jerk, but Chris is still. Too still.
I reach for him, then pull my hand back. I can’t. I don’t deserve to. He’s done nothing but handle me with care, and I have broken him. He wasn’t prepared for me any more than I was prepared for him.
He turns then, halfway toward me, and I see it in his face. The utter shock. The total betrayal. How could he not have seen this coming?
I think it’s because the first time Chris saw me, I wasn’t me. He saw someone who didn’t exist. And by the time he figured that out, he didn’t care anymore.
He should have cared.
He cares now.
In the half-light of my pitiful bulb, everything looks gray. Dust motes hang in the air. My narrow bed is unmade, sheets tangled. The quilt my mom stitched when I was two hangs halfway off the mattress, stretched toward the door like it, too, would flee this room if it could. The rest is bare—the drawers, the closet door, the walls. Even the clothes strewn across the chair and rug are plain and dirty.
Somehow it’s never bothered me before. But with Chris here it does.
His eyes are closed, his burnished lashes quivering because he’s screwed so tight. Everything’s shaking under the pressure. The muscles in his jaw twitch. His hands are white-knuckled. His shoulders . . . oh, Lord, help me, those shoulders that have lifted things I can’t carry and swept me along, too . . . they’re hunched. Knotted. Pressed in on themselves. On him. There’s so much of him that I feel small, yet he’s the place where I can breathe.
At least, he was.
My insides are in freefall because I did this to him. I shouldn’t have that power over him. I shouldn’t have that power over anyone. But he gave it to me and refused to take it back.
“Chris?” I barely whisper, but he flinches as if I screamed. “It wasn’t about—”
“Don’t.” It’s a hard syllable. A word bitten off. He doesn’t even open his eyes. “I swear, Tully, if you say one word . . .” His fist becomes a hammer.
I am ugly. I am black inside, rotting and putrid. I have told him this. Many times. But tonight, finally, he believes me. As he turns on his heel and stumbles out the door, I can’t even call after him. Because when he gave me the power to turn him inside out, I gave him mine. And even though I knew this day would come, knew he was wrong about me, somehow he gave me hope.
As I watch him stagger into the hallway and disappear, that hope begins its death throes. It doesn’t die quietly. It screams and curses and shoves at me. And for the first time ever, I am grateful for my life, for my father, and for this house.
Because if it’s taught me anything, it’s how to take a blow.
Chapter 35
When I wake up, it’s to a pounding headache and the sudden, devastating memory of what I’ve done.
No one told me that when you loved someone that person’s pain becomes your own. I thought that pushing Chris away, toward something better, would feel good. At least for him. But I am haunted by the look on his face. By the pain that tore him apart. The fire that burned in him and made him shake.
Suddenly, I can’t bear to be in this room. I throw on clothes, I leave the house at a sprint, feet pounding on the sidewalks, then the
gravel driveway, and eventually dirt. I don’t stop running even when my lungs burn and the cold air forces tears to my eyes. I make it to Nigel’s clearing in record time, then slide to a halt on the dusty, tussocky ground.
Something is different. It takes me a second to figure out what.
Then I realize that Nigel has wheels. His windows are framed. And the door I’ve been working on—the one with the crappy hinges that won’t lay flat—is hung perfectly. I put my hand over my mouth, breathe slow to keep the nausea at bay.
Chris and his “other plans.” He must have come to my house last night to bring me here. To give this to me. And I . . .
Stumbling, I force myself to go to Nigel, to turn the new brass handle and open the door. There’s a tiny vase on the shelf in the corner, with two sagging white daisies. In place of my air mattress is a real mattress with crisp white sheets and a quilt covered in small flowers.
Tulips.
Next to the newly made bed, propped against the little vase, is an envelope with my name on it in his scrawling handwriting. And next to that is a twisted piece of metal: a starter. I crawl inside and pick it up. With twitching hands, I tear open the envelope and pull out a sheet of simple note paper.
Tully,
I know you’re hurting. And I wish so hard I could take it from you so you didn’t have to feel it anymore. Since I can’t, I’ve done this instead. We’ll put this last part in together and Nigel will run. Then we can run too. Wherever you want to go. However long it takes.
We’ll go on vacation from life. Together.
I love you,
Chris.
I crush the note to my chest, let my chin drop. For a second I let myself imagine how it would have felt if our roles were reversed—if I’d walked into his room to find him with someone else. The way my insides would have shattered and cut my heart into pieces.
My body trembles, and I wrap my arms around my knees and squeeze.
I don’t deserve Chris.
And he definitely didn’t deserve me.
~
I’ve been sitting in Nigel for hours when I hear the Jeep. For the briefest moment in time, I think Chris is here to give me a chance to explain, to forgive me. When I jump out of Nigel, throwing open the door so hard it hits the wall, I see the dark circles under his eyes and the tense set of his jaw. His arms are folded over his chest.
We stand that way for a few seconds, then he clears his throat and rubs a hand over his face. He stares at me like he wants to say something but can’t make the words.
“I just . . . Why?” he finally blurts. His eyes shine with unshed tears.
I feel as if I’ve lost my balance, as if the ground is spinning beneath me. “I’m sorry.” My voice gives on the word. Chris’s expression hardens. I have to cover my face with my hands to keep from sobbing. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
“No.” He snarls the word. “No!”
The anger I’ve wanted from him for days—the resistance—is finally here.
“You don’t get to be sad, Tully,” he spits. “You don’t get to cry. You did this. We were happy. We were in love. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? How rare? To find someone you love who loves you back.” He blinks and catches himself. “Or at least I thought you did.”
I gasp. “Of course I love you.”
I realize my slip when his eyes widen. His piercing gray eyes that, even now, plead with me to make it better. And as much as I want to, I can’t. I did this for him. I can’t take it back now.
His forehead creases. “You didn’t have to do this,” he says. “You could have broken up with me.”
“I tried to. You wouldn’t let me.” The words feel hollow, the worst version of an excuse.
His face crumples. “You could have dumped me,” he rasps. “You didn’t have to break me.”
A sound starts in my throat and I force it back. Chris reaches forward with a shaking hand and touches my cheek where it was bruised and swollen after Dad hit me.
I close my eyes, memorizing the sensation, the warmth in his touch. Then his hand falls away and I’m alone in my skin. As his Jeep peels out of the clearing I realize that he’s right. We loved each other. We were happy. Without anyone else’s bullshit, we were happy.
And I ruined everything.
Chapter 36
Somehow, I survive the rest of the weekend, one hour fading into the next until it’s Monday. Going to school means I have to see Chris, to face what I have done. Just knowing he’ll be in the same vicinity without being able to touch him makes my heart ache.
I scan every hall, every shadow. Then as soon as I catch sight of him—his head poking above the crowd ahead as he turns the corner in the hall—I begin to shake. My chest feels as though iron bands are slowly closing around my ribs. My insides roil with so much feeling, so many questions, I keep my hands tucked into my sides, afraid I’ll accidentally brush someone and give them cardiac arrest.
I am barely holding it together. And then I go to woodshop.
The class is pure torture. The thump and clap of wood and laughter grates on my nerves, hums in my muscles. I’m alone at my bench for the first time all semester; Chris has switched to one of the front benches. His shoulders hike every time there’s a sharp noise.
With shaking hands I try to measure a dovetail joint in the folding bench seat I’m building. I drop my ruler three times, finally barking a curse when it lands on my toe.
“Hey! Tully!” The entire room pauses as Mr. Garrison glares at me. “Keep it PG, please.”
Cheeks flaming, I keep my gaze down. I can’t stand the idea of meeting Chris’s gaze and seeing the hate that must be there by now. I try to focus on my project. I should be making the cuts, chiseling out the little triangles that make the joint strong. But my hands are trembling so much I can’t even make a straight mark on the wood.
As Mr. Garrison passes me on the way back to the bandsaw, he pauses over my shoulder. My hand slips again and the tip of my pencil breaks.
“Tully?” he says softly.
I stop trying to draw, but don’t look at him.
“I think you need to go see Ms. Pine.”
“I’ll be fine,” I mutter. “I want to finish this.”
“That isn’t a suggestion, Tully.” His voice is kind but hard. “Do it. Go talk to her before you end up losing a finger.”
With a sigh, I put away my tools, stuff my notebook in my bag, and leave. Chris watches me all the way through the room and out the door. I can feel his gaze like a razor cutting my skin.
When I reach Ms. Pine’s office, she peers at me like she’s getting ready to hide all the knives. “Tully?”
I slump in the chair opposite her and pick at my cuticles.
“I know you broke up with Chris, and I know that’s bothering you,” she says, peering at me. “Relationships are hard and it’s normal to go through ups and downs. But Mr. Garrison spoke to Chris and he seems to think that you may have intentionally sabotaged the relationship. I wanted to ask you why, in case somehow we can help . . . ?”
She sits forward, leans her elbows on her knees and looks me right in the eye. I want to look away, but that would be weak.
“Tully . . . did you think you needed to break up with him before he broke up with you?”
It’s like an arrow has pierced my chest. “No,” I lie, turning away as if I can’t be bothered with her. “Can I leave now?”
Her lips press in. She tips her head to the side. “You have to be here, Tully. Mr. Garrison sent you from class. I can’t make you talk,” she says gingerly. “But I can ask you to listen.”
I glare at the wall and wait.
She sighs. “Here’s the thing. I wonder if you thought Chris would break up with you eventually, so you decided to beat him to the punch. But there was something different in you when he was around, and i
t worries me that you gave up on that.” She rolls her pencil between her fingers. “Let me be clear: I don’t think a guy is the answer to any of the crap you’re dealing with,” she says in a hard voice.
I blink.
“But I do think that this guy maybe gave you a taste of what it’s like to be respected and treated like you’re worthwhile. And that’s a valuable thing for you to experience. So I want you to know one thing.”
She sits forward and I can feel her staring at me. I don’t look up because I’m terrified I’ll cry if I do.
“Whether you’re in a relationship with Chris or me or anyone you deserve respect. You have value in who you are and what you can do. And no one should take that away from you. No one, do you understand?”
I nod, breathing through the desire to cry, holding on to my anger at her for her tenderness.
“The thing I want to encourage you to do is to find the place where you can treat yourself that way. Because no matter what else is going on, if you know you’re valuable, others will see it, too. And the jerk-offs who can’t will break their teeth trying to take a bite out of you.”
She doesn’t have to say Rudy’s name.
I shrug. It’s too late for me, Ms. Pine, but thanks for trying.
“Can I go now?” I repeat.
She slumps a little in her seat. “Yes. You can go. But please, Tully,” she says as I get to my feet. “Think about what I said?”
“Sure.” I snip off the syllable and reach for my bag near the leg of the chair.
Ms. Pines makes it sound easy. It isn’t. In fact, at this point it’s impossible. When you’ve sunk as far into the dark as I have, there’s no more light to reach for.
Chapter 37
Just as the rising sun is turning the sky pink, my body finally gives up and falls into an uneasy slumber. I sleep through my alarm and don’t wake until it’s already ten minutes into second period. While I shower, I seriously consider ditching school altogether, going to Nigel, figuring out how to put the starter in, and getting out of this fucked-up town. Instead, I find myself hustling back to my room to dig black jeans and a long-sleeve blue shirt out of my pile of clothes, and pull on my black corduroy jacket.
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