He retreated to his room and slammed the door, and I locked myself in the bathroom, stripped off my filthy clothes, drowned myself in a shower that smelled too much like him and utterly snuffed out the sunshine glow of our afternoon. By the time I emerged, they were gone, and only after a thorough search of the house—only after I confirmed that I was, indeed, completely alone—did I let myself break. Only then did I curl into a miserable ball beneath my quilt, and cry until I choked.
I have good news and bad news, Connor. Which do you want first? It’s Lane, btw.
I know it’s you. Both at once.
I have your stash and will return it ASAP. However, it may be slightly depleted.
Goddamn it, Lane. I GUESS I forgive you. Since it’s your birthday and all.
Sorry. It’s been kind of a day. How’s your hangover?
I’ll live. You okay? Need to talk?
No, I’m good. Thanks anyway.
No problem.
“Are you serious, Elaine? What the hell is your deal?”
I’d spent the evening holed up in my room, fully intent on never coming out again—a plan that would have worked fine had Grey not barged in a scant few minutes after his return, startling my fingers mid-text. His face was a flushed, humiliated nightmare.
“I said I was sorry,” he yelled from the doorway. “You don’t have to be a bitch and drag it out like this.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not dragging anything out.”
“Then why,” he seethed, “is your shit hanging all over the bathroom? I wasn’t trying to mess with it, you know. You don’t have to turn it into a joke.”
“It’s not a joke. That’s where I hang it to dry, you jerk. It’s where I’ve always hung it.”
I scrambled off my bed and pushed past him to the bathroom, yanking my things off the shower curtain rod and wall hooks. I stormed back to my room, and there he was, arms crossed, like a goddamn hall monitor. He stepped aside to let me pass at the same moment I made a flustered lunge in the same direction. We ended up in a clumsy side-to-side shuffle, silent and huffy and avoiding each other’s eyes. He stilled me with a hand on my hip, stepped deliberately past me. Disappeared into his own room and slammed the door behind him.
I slunk into my room, curled up under my quilt, and stared at the wall through stinging eyes. I could hear Grey moving around his room—the tread of his feet on the hardwood, the groan of a loose floorboard. The sharp aroma of burning sage as he smudged the negative energy from his room, because Wiccan passive aggression is definitely a thing. The click of his nightstand lamp and squeak of his mattress, as he settled into his own bed. The creak of the bed frame, frustrated and restless, then suddenly regular. Deliberate.
The air hitched in my throat; my hip sang where he’d touched me, the memory of palm on bone bursting hot and cold across my cheeks. I shifted closer, pressed my ear to the wall. Heard the careful, rhythmic tell of bedsprings, heard his breath catch and shudder. Heard a name ride out low on the echo of his sigh.
My name. And not Elaine—not the softer, girlish family version, wrapped in innocent context—Lane.
My clenched hand flew to my mouth, barely trapping the splash of sound that surged from my throat. My skin simmered; my veins were kerosene, aching for the touch of a match. Everything hung on that word—our lives and family, present and future; the seconds before and after it left his mouth ran together like gooseflesh melting smooth in the sun, and this wasn’t my fault—he’d found me on his own, plunged blind into dark, brackish depths, dredged me from the groundwater so we surfaced together. Never stopped to think if we should breathe in open air.
It was only a wall. A wall and a door and a hundred thousand miles. It would be so easy to leave my bed and slip into his—just a few simple steps between our rooms—the literal turn of a corner. Instead, I unleashed my thoughts, let them run loose in a way I hadn’t since before he’d moved in. Let my eyes slide closed and my hand slide lower, let it become his in a sudden rush of heat. Instead, I turned away from the wall, stifled my own gasps in the pillow before I upended everything—before I pushed through those miles and found him, crossed every line, undid every lie I’d lived since he’d become my brother.
Before I set fire to everything between us, letting it spark and scorch and devour us both, until there was nothing left in the world to burn.
6
MY LEAST FAVORITE VERSION OF the dream was the one with the puzzle pieces. My mother was two-dimensional, a flat card-stock version of herself. Still dead, of course; still sprawled in blood and staring at nothing, but punched out in jigsaw segments, scattered and unassembled and smooth. Until they began to rise.
One by one, they swelled and formed, bursting into shape like popcorn. They trembled, fit themselves together, clicked into place until she was whole again. Until her eyes flew open, and her head snapped sideways to catch me, as I tried to run. I never could run, though, because I had no feet. I never could run, because I stumbled on the stumps of my ankles, fell to the floor beside her. Landed shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye, shark-toothed grin to terrified scream, and I could see them: the slither just beneath her skin. The worms, eating her from the inside out.
I woke up when I rolled into the wall.
As bad as every version was, that one stuck to me in shards, lingered long after the others faded. It was never about going back to sleep at that point; it was only about escaping. Slowing my heartbeat long enough to scuttle down the hallway, as far from my bed as I could get.
I pushed the nightmare aside, focused on replacing it with the now-week-old memory of my name, the way it had shuddered its way off his tongue, cracking fault lines into fissures beneath our feet. Since that night, Grey and I had called a truce—if a truce can, in fact, be defined as two people referencing an event in neither word nor look nor deed. He chatted easily through meals and car rides, smiled across the distance between us, as if he could erase the laundry room incident with every flash of teeth. Not that I’d blank out on that mess anytime soon. I certainly couldn’t forget the things I’d heard, that night and nearly every night since, or how my mind and body responded every time. How I put my ear to that darkened wall and wished, waiting for him to give in. I scavenged for those crumbs—pressed them to my lips, licked them from my fingers. Fed on his sounds and hoped they’d sate me, even as they only woke my need.
I didn’t want to ignore them, even though I knew I should. I didn’t want to forget.
I moved around the dark kitchen, grabbed a mug and a tea bag, filled the kettle and put it to boil, then leaned against the sink, staring out the window at the backyard. The moon dipped into the trees, turned the world to slate. I focused on the sky, shaking off the worst of the shivers.
“You too, huh?”
His voice curled out of the darkness, tugging me around to face his bedhead and moonlit eyes. My breath hitched on the corner of his sleepy smile.
“Greyson. What are you doing awake?”
“Chronic insomnia. Had it since my dad left.”
“You don’t sleep? Like, ever?”
“No, I sleep. It’s more a matter of settling my brain. Once I’m out, I usually stay out—it’s the getting there that’s tough.” He shrugged and smiled again, and my God, but he was pretty. “You?”
“I have nightmares some nights. Most nights. Sleep-wake, sleep-wake, every few hours.”
“That’s actually not too far removed from the body’s natural sleep cycle,” he said. “Small periods of unconsciousness, punctuated by wakefulness. It was a fairly normal pattern, prior to the invention of the electric light. Creativity is thought to be at peak levels during the time between first and second sleeps.”
“That sounds better in theory than it actually is.” The kettle skittered on the burner. I turned and caught it, right before the whistle. “Want some tea?”
“Sure.” He padded across the kitchen, recoiled at the sight of my mug. “Thanks, but I drink actual tea. Not that mass-produc
ed bag-on-a-string shit.”
“Well, aren’t you fancy.” I giggled as he grabbed the tea bag and lobbed it at the trash can, plucked a loose tea canister and a set of infusers from the cabinet. “Oh my God. Please tell me that’s not a Death Star infuser.”
“Of course it’s a Death Star infuser. Go. Sit.”
I sat at the table as he brewed our tea, watched the shadows dart over his hands and up his forearms. He’d been a skinny kid, with braces and knobby knees. Pants cinched tight at the waist, shirts billowing into space off a coat-hanger frame. Now his T-shirt strained around broad, solid shoulders. Now he was standing in my kitchen that was also his kitchen, making us cups of tea at three in the morning. He turned and caught me staring, smiled at me through the curls of steam. Moonlight caught in his messy hair, winked off the pewter pentacle around his neck. Both of us were bed-rumpled, both in pajamas, and it was far, far too easy to wear down the edge of a wish until it blurred into a delusion.
“Have you studied Jung?”
“What?” I blinked my way out of those thoughts, hoping none of them showed in my eyes. “I don’t think I’ve heard of … that.”
“Him, not ‘that.’ Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst.” He set my tea in front of me and slid into the next chair, dragging the infuser chain in circles over the rim of his mug. “The objective and subjective methods of dream interpretation—objects and people in dreams representing themselves specifically, versus those same things representing aspects of your subconscious. I have some books on his theories, if you’re interested.”
“Oh. I’ll pass, actually. Literally the last thing I need is to pick apart my dreams.”
“Are you sure? It might help you figure out some of the deeper meanings, or where they’re rooted in your mind.”
“Thanks, but they’re all about my mom being dead, so I think it’s pretty cut-and-dried.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” He was so earnest and sweet, sitting there in his pajamas, lisping around his retainer and trying to think of ways to help me. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted those fingers dug into my hips, wanted the texture of his unshaven face against my cheek and jaw and neck. “Well, I hope the tea does the trick. You keep drinking that bagged shit. No wonder you can’t sleep.”
“Right. That’s the reason I can’t close my eyes for more than an hour at a time—commercial tea bags.”
“Whatever. I think—whoa, careful. Heh—looks like the good stuff is wasted on you.”
I’d absently pulled the Death Star all the way out of the still-steaming tea. It dripped and pooled, and ran off the edge of the table.
“See? You should have left me alone with my shitty tea bag. Saved us both some trouble.” I wrinkled my nose as a drop splashed on my knee. “Ow. Cleanup time.”
“I’ve got it, Elaine.”
“No, it’s my mess. Sit down.”
“No, you sit down.”
He was teasing me, blocking my way to the sink. I pushed past him, and he grabbed me by the waist, swung me back toward the table. I spun him by the shoulders and slipped beneath his arm, breathless with a childish, giddy hope. His laughter was hushed, his hands strong around my wrists as we stumbled toward the counter. He grabbed the dishtowel, then stopped cold, stumbling over his own feet. I looked up and caught his eye, in time to watch his world slip and shatter.
I saw it happen. I saw it in the clench of his fingers around the towel, the tremble of his lips around a sharp breath. His eyes moved over me, changing as they went, shifting low to my hips and back up again, lingering. I stood straight and lowered my chin, hardly daring to look.
The moonlight poured in the window, washed me in a silver-blue gleam. It stained my arms and hands and body, shot straight through my thin pajama top, and lit me like a star. I might as well have been topless.
A soft, pitiful noise worked its way up from my lungs. Chills broke across my skin like snowmelt, freezing, then slicing, dripping from scalp to neck to spine to soles. My eyes leaped up in time to catch his slipping over my shoulder, off the curve of my collarbone. They reached into me and burned and burned, and undid something in my chest.
“Grey—”
“Sorry.”
The word flew from his mouth in pieces. He was already headed for the door, still clutching the towel. Still stammering apologies over his shoulder as he disappeared.
7
“OKAY. SO, I DON’T KNOW who all’s going to be here? But be prepared. Every now and then, some real freaky people show up.”
We sat in Sadie’s car, parked but still buckled in, staring through the windshield at the warehouse. It was a low, squat thing, stretching its way across a gravel lot in right angles of brick and metal. One of many holdouts from the historic Industrial District, located just far enough from the bright bustle of revived, gentrified studios and shops of the River Arts District to reap none of the proximal benefits.
Grey had, unsurprisingly, declined the invitation; he hadn’t exactly sought out my company in the four days since our little nighttime tea party had literally gone tits up, which made day-to-day life more than a tad unbearable. Nothing like having the boy you love literally bolt from the room the second you walk in. Nothing like checking around every doorway and corner to make you feel like an intruder in your very own home.
Plus, he’d clearly told Sadie just a bit less than not a goddamn thing. Not that I was aching to take up that particular mantle on his behalf, but the memory of that night scraped my conscience raw. She was my friend, and she trusted me—and yet, she’d been perfectly comfortable shaming me for my gardening attire, unprompted. Even though what had happened in the kitchen was a genuine accident, I had no doubt she’d find a way to throw every scrap of blame at my feet. And in the end, she was Grey’s girlfriend, not mine; far be it from me to dictate the boundaries of their intimate communication.
So I played along—I mirrored her smiles and giggles, listened in a guilt-edged haze as she babbled through our lunch period about her brother’s art, and when I’d remarked that I’d never seen a metalsmith at work before, she’d nearly lost her mind right there in the cafeteria. She’d texted Connor before I could stop her, informing him of our impending afternoon visit. He’d sent back a neutral That’s fine, which left me at once excited and unsure, nervous to intrude, yet secretly dying to see the fabled warehouse.
“So it’s not a studio?” I asked her, eyeing the selection of badly parked cars in the lot.
“More like a co-op. A workshop, for artists who don’t have their own creative space. There’s no storefront or gallery, nothing like that—oh, and it’s not open to the public. Paul doesn’t care for tourists. Or retail customers. People in general, really.”
“Who’s Paul?”
“He owns the warehouse. Or his parents do, anyway. He’s the one who brought my brother here in the first place, gave him a place to live. Taught him his trade.”
“And they really let just anyone in here? Isn’t there a screening process?”
“Yes—if a person has one hundred and fifty dollars to hand to my brother, that’s the screening process. It gets them free run of the space for a week, anytime between noon and two a.m. They can use the easels and tools and stuff, but if they want to use the finite materials, like paint or clay or whatever, they have to buy them directly from Connor or Paul. But anyway,” she continued, “those are the rules. If someone makes trouble in here, Connor will ban them for life on the spot. If they act creepy, they get banned. If they break something and don’t replace it, or get caught stealing? Banned. Don’t worry—if I see anyone looking sketchy, I’ll tap you three times on the left shoulder, like this.”
“Ow. Maybe not so hard, okay? Anyway, how bad could they be?”
“You never can tell. He’s only had to ban, like, four people, though. That I know of. We should be fine.”
We left those ominous parting words hanging in the car, and let ourselves in.
The warehouse was equal parts cool and scary, the perfec
t place to suddenly find yourself trapped and panting, running through the twists and turns and rooms in search of a nonexistent exit. The front room was a cavernous open space, with spotless concrete floors and industrial ceiling fixtures, rows of shelving and supplies lined up along the exposed brick walls. Sadie didn’t bat an eye as she led me through a scatter of occupied easels to a hallway, pointing out different rooms as we passed: pottery and ceramics. Beading and lapidary. Woodworking. Fiber arts—a riotous rainbow of yarns and fabrics she had to drag me past.
We found Connor in the metal room, mired in art, soldering iron in hand. He bent over his worktable, not even acknowledging us until he’d set the iron to the side, straightened and stretched, pushed his safety goggles to the top of his head.
“Hey. Didn’t expect to see you two so soon.” He stretched again and glanced at me, lifting his chin to indicate the hallway. “So? What do you think?”
“It’s amazing. A whole room for yarn? A spinning wheel? You’re lucky I even made it back here.”
“You’re into fiber?”
“Connor, that’s pretty much all I’m into. All the handmade items in my dad’s inventory? These are the hands.”
“Really?” He pulled the goggles off and faced me, eyebrows raised in approval. “Do you spin?”
“I’ve never had the chance to learn.”
“I’ll teach you. Once I’m done in here, we can whip up a skein or ten.”
“But first you need to show her how you work,” Sadie butted in. “Let Lane see the process, start to finish.”
Connor rolled his eyes.
“Ah yes, ‘the process.’ And let me guess, Sadie—you want me to demonstrate the process by making you … ?”
“Bangles. Please? Pretty please?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll make you a bangle. Singular. Settle down.”
That was a pointless thing to ask of Sadie, but she did at least fall silent. Not that her chatter would have made much difference—Connor went hyperfocused once more, as he measured and cut a length of thick, half-round silver wire, pounded texture into it, and filed the edges smooth before dropping it into a Crock-Pot labeled NONFERROUS.
Together We Caught Fire Page 4