“Who is it?” I called.
“APD. Austin Police Department.”
“Can I see badges?” Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do? I was so alarmed and alert, I wasn’t sure I was thinking clearly.
Two outstretched arms held up some sort of identification that appeared blurry through the smoked glass slats in the front door. Good enough. For the flash of a second, I was pissed at my mom that she wasn’t home.
I opened the door about a foot wide. The female officer was much younger than the male officer and had black hair drawn tight into a miniscule ponytail.
“We received a call about a possible prowler?”
“I’m the one who called. A girl came running from the house next door. I heard her scream. You probably already know about what’s been going on over there—”
“Okay. Do you have a parent present?”
“No. My mom’s at work. Did you already look next door?”
“Father home?”
Pause. “No.”
“So, you’re here by yourself?”
Should I be giving out this information?
My silence must have been enough for them to assume I was alone. Completely.
I launched in. “Did you go over there?” I pointed next door.
The police officers glanced at each other and didn’t answer my question. With rising disbelief, I noted their unhurried stances. They weren’t buying into my emergency.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions about what you think you may have seen next door.”
“Okay.” I shifted to my other leg and leaned on the door. When it moved, I almost lost my balance. Mike always said I had incredible “kinesthetic awareness”—that I always knew where my body was in space. Without sleep, my coordination was going.
The woman stepped forward to steady me when I swayed with the door.
They seemed to eye me for a second and then understand we’d be doing the interview in front of the house. I looked past them. There were two police cars parked on the cul-de-sac and I noticed the other officers walking down the lit path of the Moores’ house. Lights were on in about five houses, indicating that the cops were interviewing everyone, knocking on doors before daylight.
“Around three thirty a.m., you said there was activity outside your home?”
“Yes, I was upstairs in my bedroom, listening to music, and then I heard something. So I walked over to the window. I heard a scream and then I saw someone—someone with long hair, run from the house next door.” I pointed to my left. “I’m pretty sure the person was female. And then she disappeared.”
“Can you describe her?”
“No. Just that she was female. I only had a glimpse of someone running and that she had long hair.”
“Hair color?”
“Brown. Maybe? I’m not sure. It was hard to tell, even with the full moon.”
One of the other officers walked up. There was a side conference. When the cops interviewing me returned, I said, “Also, the night before last I saw a light in the window of the house. A lamp seemed to switch on, then off. But I wasn’t sure if I was seeing things.”
“Why would you be seeing things?”
“I’ve had a head injury.” When I said it, I realized I’d just undone my credibility.
“What time would you say that was? When you saw a light go on.”
“After midnight, for sure. I can’t quite remember.” I’d never heard my voice waver before. “Can you tell me what the neighbors said?”
“No one heard or saw anything,” the female police officer said.
“They must have heard the scream,” I pressed.
As though he was frustrated with the girl crying wolf, the male cop began pointing at my closest neighbors’ houses. “This person is on vacation, according to their next-door neighbors who are caring for their lawn. That neighbor fell asleep with the television on. That neighbor got home from a red-eye and was asleep.”
“You know the house is vacant and has been broken into recently, right?”
They nodded. “There’s a patrol car making the rounds every night.” The male cop swatted at a mosquito. In the porch light, I saw it fly into the house.
“Can we get your name?”
Was this really it? Was it my age? They carried an air that this was a fool’s errand.
I gave them all my information. They gave me a card and told me to call them if I saw anything else. On the way to their patrol cars, I heard them discussing breakfast.
How was it that none of the neighbors could corroborate my story? Had I been wrong to call 911? The whole street would think so. For a second, I doubted myself.
But I’d seen her. And heard her. I swore I had.
* * *
Now it was 5:00 A.M.
I stood in the hallway between the front door and kitchen, then slid down the wall to the concrete floor. A glossy brown cockroach slipped through a slim crack under the baseboard near my hand.
I tried to remember the last time I felt happy and safe. Before the accident, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I wasn’t either.
A memory suddenly came up from years and years ago. Fourth of July, after seeing the fireworks, being tucked into bed by my dad. “My sweet girl,” he’d murmured. I’d watched his back as he left the door open an inch, my eyes halfway closed even before he’d left the room. The memory seemed to surface from out of nowhere.
The gentle knocking interrupted my thoughts. It was so soon after the police had left that I assumed it was one of them returning with a question. I pushed myself up off the cold floor and straightened my boxer shorts that had done a half-turn when I slid against the wall. Through the opaque glass, I saw one figure.
“Who is it?” I asked automatically.
“It’s Van.”
* * *
His voice was soft, as though he was worried he would wake up everyone in my house.
I opened the door wide. Van wore a navy-blue hoodie unzipped, a worn T-shirt that looked soft, and a pair of bright blue athletic shorts. Nothing he would ever wear to school. I was getting a glimpse of his private life. Seeing me in pajamas, he was getting one as well.
“I didn’t mean to—I just saw the cops leave,” he said, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the street.
I realized I was staring at him and I hadn’t said a word.
“It’s five a.m., I know. I told my mom I’d check to see if you guys were okay.” I peered around Van and caught sight of Lisa in their doorway across the street. She took a step back into the foyer and closed the front door, leaving me and Van to ourselves.
So Lisa had sent him. “We’re fine,” I said brusquely. You can go home.
“Okay,” Van said slowly, but he lingered. Fireflies dotted the landscape behind him. With the cops there were mosquitoes. With Van, there were fireflies.
“I’m the one who called the police,” I blurted.
“That’s what my mom said.”
“You didn’t hear anything?” I asked.
“I had headphones on.”
So he’d been awake, too.
Van suddenly lunged forward to swat at a mosquito near my cheek. When he came so close, my vision blurred and he temporarily appeared in double.
Van stepped back again, straightened, and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. He shrugged a shoulder to brush something away from his own cheek. I waited for him to make his excuses and say good night.
“Your mom’s car is gone.” Van tipped his head toward our driveway.
“She works the night shift.”
“You’re by yourself every night?” Van asked huskily. It was inadvertent that it sounded suggestive and he coughed, embarrassed.
“Yep.” Our exchange was growing increasingly awkward. He didn’t strike me as someone who would ever be awkward.
Van looked over his shoulder warily. His house was dark again. “Do you mind if I come in for a sec?”
“Of course.” I cou
ldn’t have been more surprised.
I had zero idea what he might want. I backed out of the way and Van stepped inside my house and I closed the tall, heavy glass door behind him. And then we were standing together in the foyer. Alone.
Every light downstairs was dimmed low and it was much darker inside, away from the hot spotlight beam on the front steps. The entire house looked like a setting for a candlelit dinner. If Van thought this was strange, he didn’t say a word. I sensed his eyes adjusting. My eyes adjusted as well and I saw him look at what I was wearing—a V-neck T-shirt and shorter shorts than what I would ever wear to school. My legs suddenly felt extremely bare.
Van had been a presence in my life but a distant one for the past seven years. Now he was right here and we were in that weird interstitial place specific to neighbors: not friends but not strangers, and in some situations, like family. When something out of the ordinary happened, it was normal to talk at 5:00 A.M.
“So you’re home alone every night,” Van repeated. He sounded amazed, which made me feel defensive.
“Nurses work at night.”
“I know. I just didn’t know she did.” He shifted his stance and smiled slightly.
“What?”
“It’s just funny that I have Kevin watching me like he’s my jailer and you’re the complete opposite across the street. No one is watching out for you. Wait, you know what I mean—no one is watching your every move,” he corrected. Van glanced up at the ceiling briefly as though he was kicking himself for what he’d just said. This was all around becoming the strangest encounter. Van Tagawa was in my house and not getting to his point.
“Why is Kevin acting like your jailer? Besides just liking to bust kids in general.” I thought of Kevin on Halloween, on his bike, notorious for chasing after kids with backpacks full of eggs. I was prolonging things. It could be the one and only conversation I had with Van for the rest of high school and his adorable nervousness was a side of him I hadn’t seen. It was cheering me up.
“I got caught sneaking out in the fall.” Had he snuck out to see a girl? Max and Wilson?
Usually I was okay with long silences. I found other people would rush in to fill them. But Van made me nervous and I searched for things to say. It was still dark but technically morning. “Do you want some coffee?” I stared at the scarlet remains of my weeks-old pedicure as I waited for his no. It seemed like a long time ago that I’d reluctantly let Izzie paint my toes while she recounted her spring break.
“Sure,” Van agreed.
Oh. “Okay. This way.”
As soon as I brightened the kitchen lights, I deeply regretted that I’d asked him to come farther into the house. Izzie came over now and then but I was always uncomfortable. I didn’t like anyone noticing things. And pointing out what was obviously broken. As if I didn’t know.
But Van didn’t react to the sheer emptiness of my house. Or its condition compared to his bright, lived-in, über-stylish home that kept up with the times.
I guesstimated the right amount of coffee as I shakily dumped it into the filter, spilling grounds onto the white counter. When I turned my head, Van was over at the kitchen windows, gazing out at the wild, brambled yard. The sooner Van went home, the sooner I could relax. I hated how much other people in my home put me on edge. Especially Van. I didn’t want to care what he thought.
Van turned back to me and I was struck again by how familiar and unfamiliar he was. I wanted to stare at him up close without him knowing so I could see all the small ways he’d changed since we were young.
“Earlier, you thought you saw someone in the backyard?” Van asked. “At the house next door, I mean.”
I poured water into the coffee too quickly and it splashed over the sides of the well. He walked over to me and grabbed the gray-striped dish towel folded neatly next to the sink and began to mop up water. I was completely aware of his arm accidentally grazing mine. I was sure he was oblivious.
I could finally ask him. “Yes. And last night, I thought I saw a lamp turn on. Exactly at the time when you and I…” I didn’t know how to put it.
“You mean when you and I looked right at each other from our bedroom windows?” His voice was teasing.
I blushed for sure. “Yes.”
“So what happened?”
“A light went on in the window and then a second later it went off. You didn’t see it?”
“No.” He shook his head.
I shook my own head, brushing the entire, made-up incident away.
“Show me,” Van said. “Walk me through what you saw from your window.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
TUESDAY, APRIL 5
There was no way I was taking him to my bedroom. He wasn’t about to see the dilapidated upstairs of my house.
“It was probably nothing. The doctor said I might see halos around lights for a bit,” I backtracked. But I hadn’t been staring at a light. All the lights in my bedroom had been off.
“Let’s check it out.”
“Oh, no, seriously, don’t worry about it.”
“I guess—” Van stopped midsentence and, frustrated, dragged both hands through his short hair. When he met my eyes, his looked wary. Or guilty.
“What?” I lowered my chin. What aren’t you telling me?
“So.” He paused, readying himself for a confession. “Max, Wilson, and I used that house.”
“Oh,” I said in one long exhale. “It’s just you guys over there.” I really didn’t know Van anymore if he could have broken into a neighbor’s home and stolen from them.
“No. After the family left, we only went over there a few times, weeks ago. No one would go there now, ever since it’s been robbed and the cops have been inside. But when we were there everything was still in the house. The TVs, the speakers. And we left it that way.” Funny how he knew what I’d been thinking.
“What were you doing there? Why didn’t you just party on the greenbelt?” I faced him, crossing my arms. Van paused and I realized the V-neck of my shirt had slipped, revealing a crescent of cleavage. I straightened, arms back at my sides.
“We know the trails so well, but the woods scare other people. Also, I don’t like mixing the two. The greenbelt feels kind of sacred, you know? But the house was a place we could go. We kept it really small … just us at first and then we invited Caroline and Seba,” he said, slightly apologetically, like it had been so intimate, which was why I hadn’t been invited.
Van peered at the coffee maker and then shook it gently. I’d forgotten to turn it on. I pressed the start button and ten seconds later, we heard the hiss of it coming to life. Van wandered over to the windows. With his back to me, he looked thinner than usual. Tall and thin but with muscular, soccer-player legs.
Van faced me again. “The last time I was there was kind of a weird night.”
“Weird how?”
“It’s hard to explain. I thought I saw some stuff.”
I’d forgotten how Van had this frustrating way of not spitting it out, that he could take forever to get to his point. The slow responses had always made me crazy because I was such a fast mover.
I waited Van out and finally he said, “I thought I saw two people come from the greenbelt into the backyard.”
“Like tonight! Who were they?”
“I don’t know. They were there, I blinked, and then they were gone. Maybe I just saw shadows.”
“But did you tell the police?” This was sounding more alarming, not less.
“No.”
“What? Why not?” I wanted to shake him. If he’d told the police what he saw, maybe they wouldn’t have thought I was just seeing things.
Van took a long, deep breath and my impatience made me want to kill him at that moment, just like when we were kids and he had a secret. But I’d felt free to shove him back then.
“I was lit.” He rubbed his eyes hard and it was clear it was a tactic to avoid looking me in the eye.
“Like how lit?” I asked. I kind
of didn’t want to know.
He dropped his hands and met my eyes. “We were hanging out at Max’s. I took what we’d found in the medicine cabinet at the house—some Oxy and Xanax. And then I drank.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to keep my sudden leeriness out of my voice. I didn’t know he was doing that.
Van’s eyes were slightly desperate. “I’m not doing that again. I blacked out. I don’t remember blocks of time.”
I knew how haunting it was when you couldn’t remember a stretch of time.
Van looked out the window, like he might locate his memories there if he stared hard enough. “There were things I thought I saw but I’m not sure. It could all be a vivid dream. But then some parts feel like they actually happened.”
I knew what he was talking about to an extent—that indistinct line between awake and dreaming. But usually the line sharpened seconds after waking up. It didn’t stick with you and make you question what was real. “What do you think you saw?”
“It’s like a series of scattered images and feelings. I woke up in Max’s basement, and I was all alone so I went looking for everyone. I don’t even remember crossing the street from Max’s to the house but then I was inside and following the sound of voices to the back. I was standing at the sliding glass doors looking into the yard when two people suddenly emerged through what appeared to be a solid wall of trees and bushes. It looked so surreal, which makes me think I was dreaming. You know—we grew up back there. We know all the trails. I’ve searched since but there’s nothing there except overgrown woods.” He laughed at himself, blowing it off, but it was a strained laugh.
Van slowly turned to face me again. “But then this part feels very real: Through the window, I thought I saw Max, so I went outside on the deck. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and he was standing close to a girl. They were angry-whispering and then, she yanked away and took off toward the greenbelt. I swore it was Caroline. I started to follow when suddenly, someone—maybe Wilson—blocked me. He pushed me into the house, like there was something out there I wasn’t supposed to see. He pushed me all the way down the hall, where I remember broken glass at our feet. Then I don’t remember anything until the next morning.”
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