The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  I was tired of questions but even more I was tired of answering them. So I just kept eating, taking slow bites as I stared at the chair lift at the bottom of the stairs.

  After dinner my dad tried to stay downstairs, offering to wash the dishes and then when my nonna swatted him out of the way, saying he needed to check on something in the garage. But my nonna wouldn’t go to bed until all of her boys were tucked into theirs. So she waited, we all did, and when my dad finally came back inside I saw that same look on his face that I knew was on mine. Dread. Because after three weeks we were finally going upstairs, to the place where I’d found her, to the place where we’d both lost her.

  My nonno walked alongside me the entire ride up the stairs, keeping a hand on my shoulder because he was afraid to death I’d fall out despite the safety straps and the fact that my dad was coming up right behind us. It was a bizarre procession, all of them taking slow steps up the stairs while I sort of just floated. We reached the landing and my nonna clasped her hands together like it was something to celebrate. Like I’d done it myself and not with the help of a robotic chair that was a staple in most homes owned by people over eighty.

  My nonno unfastened me and I couldn’t help but stare at his hands, thick and dark and covered in veins. He was my namesake and yet he’d been the one to make it up those stairs on his own. He was the one helping my dad move me to my bedroom, laying me down on the bed like a child even though I was bigger than him in every way.

  He kissed me on the forehead. “Goodnight, Davide. You call me, I’ll be here.”

  “Goodnight.”

  My dad pulled the cold blankets over me before laying my cellphone on the nightstand, making sure I could reach it.

  “Call me if you need anything.”

  Then he flicked off the light, closed the door, and in the dark the night was alive, and I swear I could hear it breathing.

  “You got it. That’s good. Now just five more.” Craig counted down, my arms pumping as fast they could. “One. Good. Now ten more.”

  “Shit.”

  “Language,” my nonna snapped.

  She was in the kitchen again making a lunch that would probably be enough to feed a moderately sized Italian army.

  “Two. One.” Craig dropped his hands, the padding on his gloves marked by the shape of my knuckles. “Need a breather?” The way he said it made me think that maybe it was him who needed the break.

  I’d been pushing myself as hard as I could and every time I had a surge of strength, the force catching him off guard, it just made me want to push harder. But I was tired too. My arms fell at my sides, both of us heaving. I took a deep breath, wiped the sweat off my brow, but before I could say yes, oh God, please yes, Craig had his hands up again.

  “Five more,” he said.

  We’d moved past stretching and mild strength training and had moved into fighting territory and whether that was prescribed by my doctors or just part of Craig’s sick fantasies inspired by his MMA years, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t mind though. Ever since he showed me some of his moves one day after a session I knew I’d much rather be working on my left hook than my balance. Because even though it hurt, my arms and chest aching, it felt good. It felt good to hit him. To grunt. To yell. To see my body changing and to know I’d done that.

  “Whoa, careful there.” Craig pulled back, shaking out his arm.

  “Sorry,” I said, panting.

  Craig shook his head, eyes narrowed. “Man, sometimes you just hit me with those stingers and I wonder for a second if you’re really human.”

  I managed a laugh between breaths. “It’s just all this pent up energy, I guess.” Or rage, I wanted to say.

  He cocked his head, a strange glint in his eye, and for a second I thought maybe he didn’t believe me. “You sure Dr. King didn’t do any sort of strange experiments on you while you were under?”

  “Yes,” I said, tone dry. “I’m Bionic Man.”

  When it was time to eat my nonna insisted that Craig join us after he and my nonno helped me to the table.

  “Oh, Mrs. Santillo, this smells delicious,” Craig said.

  She was blushing, grateful to have someone who probably wouldn’t mind being force-fed seconds. My nonna had made sausage ravioli and spinach stuffed Focaccia, the entire spread reminiscent of one of her famous Sunday night dinners. Craig finished his first plate before my fourth bite.

  “You made some real progress today,” he said as my nonna served him another plate.

  “My boy’s strong,” my nonno cut in.

  “Oh, trust me,” Craig said, “I’ll be feeling it later. That left hook is pretty killer.” He took another bite of ravioli, eyes closed and making my grandmother blush again. “I know this rehab might seem a little unconventional but I don’t like to go easy on people. Especially when I know they can handle it. Not to mention it’s way more productive mentally than all of that mild stretching they usually prescribe.” He pointed his fork at me. “You’re getting your strength back fast.”

  “Faster than most?” It sounded hopeful and pathetic but I couldn’t help it.

  He nodded. “I’ve worked with a lot of people, a lot of young people, but you’re special Roman.” He sat back, eyes serious. “You’re different.”

  “He’s special because he’s a Santillo,” my nonno said.

  “I believe it,” Craig said.

  And I wanted so badly to believe it too.

  My dad’s voice slipped in under the door. “You okay in there?”

  While we were living downstairs we’d showered in the guest bathroom. It was hard at first and awkward. My dad had bought a plastic chair to sit under the showerhead and once he helped me maneuver my way inside I could undress myself and shower alone. But now we were living upstairs again and I didn’t have to sit there shivering, constantly trying to maneuver myself under the spray. I could lie in the tub, floating, my legs weightless for the first time in weeks. I could relax. I could be free for a little while. But only if I could cross that threshold, lower myself down, and sink in that place where I’d found her all those nights ago.

  “Roman?”

  I stared at the water over the edge of the tub, trying not to make it black.

  “I’m…”

  I dipped a finger in. Cold. Even though I could see the steam rising.

  “Roman, I’m com—”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  I raked my hand across the surface, making it sound like I’d already gotten in. But still I could see his shoes under the door, waiting.

  I gripped the edge of the tub, pulling myself over and lowering myself down. Slowly. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I was stronger now, parts of me stronger than they’d ever been. I let the water rise to my waist, to my chest. I settled there, letting it fold over me.

  “I’m okay,” I said again, needing to hear my voice.

  I kept sinking and the water kept rising.

  “You sure?”

  No.

  I closed my eyes but it only made it worse. Because I could still feel her, rippling around me like a current. I could still feel my mother like an anchor trying to sink me down with her.

  I didn’t remember how I’d made it to my bed, in a change of clothes, completely dry. All I knew was that I was shaking and my dad was holding me. I saw his tears and then I tasted my own.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I wondered what I’d said. What I’d done to make him so upset. But all I could remember was my mother’s blood, me floating there, the water churning the color of rust.

  “I’m sorry, Roman. I didn’t mean to leave you here. I didn’t mean to leave.”

  And suddenly I remembered everything I’d wanted to say to him that night. That he did this. Because he left me with her when he knew she never wanted me. That I was alone and I was afraid and when she pushed me I wasn’t strong enough to push back. I wasn’t strong enough to stop her.

  Anger
tried to burrow its way inside me again, to carve a place between us, but even as he shuddered, I didn’t want my dad to let go. Because he had once and it had hurt me more than anything.

  “She left,” I said. “Not you.”

  “I’m sorry, Roman.”

  “I know.”

  14

  Bryn

  Dani sat on my bed, picking through my suitcase. “I can’t believe you’re leaving me here while you go to Germany.” Her voice was some strange sad thing I didn’t recognize.

  “You’re coming to visit,” I reminded her.

  “For a week.”

  “I’ll be back before—”

  “Don’t try and cheer me up.”

  “Okay, I won’t. I’m—”

  “And don’t apologize either. That will only make me feel guilty for making you feel guilty and then…”

  “You’ll explode?”

  She looked like she was about to, like maybe she wanted to. “Probably.”

  I sat down next to her, both of us facing the window and the street outside. Sunlight slipped through the curtains, a hot spoke against the scar where I’d ripped out my IV over and over again. I crossed my arms, burying it against my chest.

  “Do you think he’s coming?” Dani asked. For a second my breath hitched like she knew something I didn’t. But then she said, “Your dad.”

  My mom had said he’d visited the hospital a few times and a few weeks ago on the morning he’d found me in the garage he’d just wanted to check in on how I was doing. But despite the fact that obviously I hadn’t been doing too well, I hadn’t seen him since.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not counting on it.”

  Dani reached for me and I flinched. She uncurled my fingers and looked down at the faint pink scars.

  “Don’t do this there,” she said. “Don’t do something like this when I’m a thousand miles away from you and can’t be there.”

  I pulled away. “Dani…” My face was hot. I didn’t like that she’d seen the scars. I didn’t like that she knew.

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Look at me and promise.”

  I looked at her and there were tears in her eyes. “I promise.”

  Dani looked out the window again. “I know it hurts. Believe me. I know how bad it hurts but you’re all I’ve got.”

  I knew I’d scared her. I’d scared myself. But what none of them understood was that I wasn’t trying to hurt myself that day in the garage. I wasn’t thinking about ending anything. In that moment I was just so…tired. Of standing still. Of living inside a time bomb just waiting for it to go off. I was tired of feeling helpless so when I stood there bleeding it wasn’t because I was giving up, it was because I was finally fighting.

  I looked down at those scars, lifeline serrated and sutured back together, and I knew I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to leave. I had to leave this city. I had to leave this room. I had to leave Roman. Because even though I hadn’t seen the darkness, I could still feel it. And not just that day in the garage but all the time. And not just in the darkness of night, or in those lingering moments just before the sun came up, but inside me. It was inside me.

  “Dani.” I forced myself to reach for her, to make the words real. “I promise. I’m okay.”

  “Don’t lie,” she said. “You’re not okay. Admit it, after Roman, after everything, you’re not okay.”

  She stared at me and I trembled.

  “I’m not okay.”

  “But you will be. Say it.”

  I looked at her. “I will be.”

  Goodbyes were muted, every word resolved to sighs and sniffles and other sounds that made me think of the wake before my grandfather’s funeral. It felt definite when it shouldn’t have. It felt tragic when it should have been hopeful.

  But it wasn’t until we loaded in the car and started pulling away that I realized we’d never been separated like this: my aunt, Dani, my grandmother, and my mom and I. We had cleaved to each other in those funeral pews and we had never let go. Not like this.

  “I’ll be over there next month,” my uncle said from the driver’s seat, though I could hear in his voice that wouldn’t be soon enough.

  My mom held tight to his hand. “I’ll call you during our layovers and as soon as we land.”

  “They’re sending someone to pick you up?” he asked.

  “The hotel we’ll be staying at has a shuttle.”

  “And it’s in a good part of town?”

  “I’m not sure there’s a bad part of town.”

  “There’s always a bad part of town,” he said. “Listen, if you don’t feel comfortable there, you call me. I’ll find somewhere else for you to stay.”

  “We’ll be fine,” I said from the backseat.

  They both ignored me.

  “I looked it up online,” my mom said. “The pictures looked…well they were kind of blurry but—”

  “Great. They’ve booked you into some scam and the next thing I know the two of you will be kidnapped and sold into slavery.”

  “I told you not to watch that movie,” I said.

  They ignored me again.

  “We’ll be careful,” my mom said.

  “And always stay together,” my uncle reminded us.

  “Yeah, I’ll put mom on one of those baby leashes that’s shaped like a monkey.”

  “Bryn, did you say something?”

  “No. Just talking to myself.”

  We pulled up to the airport and my uncle helped us unload our luggage. We had three large suitcases and two carry-ons and I could barely get mine over the curb. He heaved it onto the sidewalk and then my mom walked him through our itinerary again.

  I watched the line disappear, people shuffling in through the sliding glass doors, cold air swirling out behind them. I didn’t even know it was him until he was right in front of me.

  “Bryn.” I looked at my dad, clean-shaven and smelling like peppermints. “I just wanted to see you off,” he said. “You’ll be gone for a while?”

  “Not sure.”

  The words were accusatory but he didn’t notice. He never had. I tried to read his eyes, the lines on his face as if they’d reveal why he kept turning up all of a sudden. Each time he was like the wind, knocking me back, displacing me and everyone around me before stealing the air from my lungs as he disappeared again.

  “Well…” He reached for me and it didn’t feel like it had that day in the garage—desperate and draining and deliberate. It felt rushed and uncertain and I tried to pull away but I couldn’t. “I’ll…”

  I didn’t know why he couldn’t find the words but in the quiet I was relieved. Then he inhaled. Don’t say it. Please. Don’t say it. I didn’t want promises. Not here. Not now.

  “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  Even though I knew I shouldn’t, that I’d carried broken promises before, that I had the scars to prove it, for some reason I believed him. Because I wanted to, I believed him.

  He let go of me, almost reluctantly, but when I looked up at him there was more than just emotions separating us. The time and space we were standing in felt different, both of us fragile and filtered through a lens I’d never seen before. His face changed as blood trickled down from his nose, his beard matted with it. It peeled down his torn lips until he was choking on it and then he fell to his knees.

  Wind surged around both of us, his voice lost in it as he tried to scream. But the wind was thick and too dense to see through. It turned to smoke, darkening shade by shade until the shadows I’d thought had finished haunting me were swirling all around us.

  But the closer I looked I realized that there was only one and that it hadn’t manifested out of nowhere. My dad’s jaw was unhinged and the fog came slithering out, long and winding until we were trapped within its vortex.

  I fell to my knees, clutching my dad, shaking him just as the shadow ascended and he fell limp. But I wasn’t supposed to be there. Everyt
hing was wrong, so wrong, and at the same time it was right. Like I’d seen it all before. My heart knocked against my ribs, so loud that I couldn’t remember where to put my hands or how to stop the blood. I stared at him drifting and it was all I could do. He slumped in my arms, eyes still, and then the rest of him followed.

  I blinked and was standing on the sidewalk, my dad already walking back to his truck, my mom’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Bryn, are you okay?”

  “I...” My hands found my knees. I choked back air until it felt familiar again, hiding my face as my mom brushed back my hair.

  Not here. Not now.

  “Bryn, what’s the matter? Do you need to—?”

  I shook my head, wishing I could shake out of my skin. “I’m fine.” I finally looked up again, stiff as I stared after my dad, the words he’d just said tumbling like a cog inside me.

  I’ll be here when you get back.

  I’ll be here.

  That image of his face pulsed behind my eyes, all I could see. I felt my mom beside me, maneuvering the luggage, ushering me toward the door; I felt my uncle’s hand on my shoulder. But I couldn’t move.

  I’ll be here.

  Because I knew the truth. And not because of the lies I was used to hearing from those lips but because I could sense it in every cell in my body. He’d just spoken another one and he didn’t even know it.

  15

  Roman

  I couldn’t sleep and from the sound of footsteps moving up and down the hall I could tell my dad couldn’t either. Each time he passed by my room he stopped by the door, listening. And each time I wanted to say his name, for him to open it and see that I was thinking of her too.

  I glanced at the clock, almost sunrise. It was so quiet that I could hear him breathing and when I said his name he stopped.

  He cracked the door open. “Roman?”