The Museum of Us

by Tara Wilson Redd

  I never could resist an unread book.

  You know when you read the back cover of a book and you get so into it, because the idea of the story is so awesome? And even before you’ve read it, you’re super-excited just to get to spend time in that world with those people? That’s about how well I know Eleanor. She is a book jacket: all promise.

  But I already feel like I know her so well! She’s that kind of story: the kind that you know was written just for you. I love the idea of Eleanor and her boyfriend sneaking around Paris on boarding school holidays, smoking in alleyways. When I picture them, a whole world springs out of an image: they wear black leather jackets, and her hair is newly dyed in that rainbow of pastels. He doesn’t speak much English, so they both speak French, and when he holds her the spikes on his jacket press into her skin, but she doesn’t mind. I can suffer the joyful sharpness of how it would feel to be held by someone bad like that.

  I want to read that life.

  I flip open the cover with my eyes closed, and I think hard about not opening them because I know what I’m doing is wrong.

  But I open them.

  I read a few pages and my stomach turns.

  I should have remembered: a book with an awesome premise doesn’t always live up to its cover.

  It couldn’t be, I think to myself. This is wrong. So I take out the note Eleanor left me. I flip toward the back, and hold its rough edges to a torn page I find there: a perfect jigsaw fit. I compare the handwriting. I use every trick of reasonable disbelief to try to dismantle the truth, but it’s too late: I know, and I can’t unknow.

  The notebook is definitely hers.

  Little phrases jump out at me:

  No one loves me. I hate school. I would give anything to go to boarding school.

  I am nothing. No one. I am invisible.

  If I died, maybe I would wake up as someone else.

  I can’t feel anything until I hurt myself, and even then I feel nothing.

  I read sentence after sentence and everything I know about her falls away until all that is left is Eleanor, who is just like me: a big melodramatic liar, trying to make something important that isn’t.

  I pull my green notebook out and open it on top of Eleanor’s. But I’m at a loss for words.

  “Day 9,” I write:

  I just want to go home.

  * * *

  I think I’m ready. Henry still loves me. He doesn’t know about George. No one does. As long as no one finds out, everything can go back to how it used to be. Even at my most vulnerable, I kept George safe.

  I am unsinkable.

  But nothing is unsinkable, I remind myself. That thought passing through my brain and onto paper feels like an omen.

  Even so, I’m actually excited when the nurses wheel me into Dr. Roberts’s office. I even do some of the wheeling myself. But before I can say anything, she puts one finger up.

  “I have to ask you a question that might be a little uncomfortable,” she says. “I don’t want you to feel ambushed, but you must remember, there is a reason you are here. And I would be remiss to simply allow you to continue talking around it. Now, I’ve spoken to your parents—”

  “You did what!”

  “And I asked them if they happened to know of any of your friends who might be named George. And do you know what they told me? I have a feeling you do.”

  And I swear, I can feel my heart stop.

  * * *

  I say nothing.

  I didn’t see it coming. You never do, these big things. You remember them, and later it seems like they were inevitable. But that’s just ordering the past into an arrow to the present. Memory makes stories out of time. You naturally destroy the things that you forgot along the way. All the red herrings and alternate worlds don’t live on in memory. They’re lost as the arrow of your story shoots by.

  I am always asking after those lost things. Where are the events that are not in the past, present, or future? What happens to all those forgotten thoughts? If no one remembers something, did it even really happen?

  I don’t want to remember this.

  The world is backing out of my consciousness and pulling away down that long tunnel, like a train leaving me behind. The office where we sit becomes a collection of objects: a pen, a chair, a nail, a desk, a book, a book, a book…I look at my hands. They seem a million miles away.

  I can see George, in the phantom way dreams happen. He’s not really there. What would he say? Keep your mouth shut. Don’t you dare answer. Do you want me to die? No, that isn’t it. He’d know it was only an accident. He would know I couldn’t stop it.

  But even if it was an accident, it can still be my fault.

  “Sadie?” Roberts calls. When I don’t respond, she says, “I know you don’t want to talk about this. Can you answer me?”

  I stare at the books over her shoulder and start counting them, since each one I count lifts me higher and farther away. The universe is chaotic, but numbers are peaceful. They arrange themselves neatly in lines and squares, in ways that make sense, in ways that can be understood. I love counting. One. Two. Three…Eleven…One thousand…

  George, smiling at Sadie from across the room.

  His hands in Sadie’s hair, whispering, “Quiet, darling. Everything will be all right. I’m here. I’m always here.”

  Sadie cried in her mind, but her face wasn’t connected to her thoughts anymore. She didn’t have a body, it seemed. She was at once scared and happy. She didn’t understand how it had happened, but her wish came true.

  Sadie was with George.

  “Sadie. Let’s just sit here for a moment,” Dr. Roberts said, far away. “I’m going to sit here and when you’re ready, you can say whatever you want to say, and then we’ll go on or we’ll stop. It’s up to you. I think you can hear me. Sadie.”

  Sadie…

  Where is she?

  Sadie had both hands on the ears of the German shepherd. She felt like a little kid, even though she was almost seventeen. For kids, everything is new and alien and wonderful. Petting a dog could be an adventure if you were little enough. This dog had ears that made her feel like that, and for just a moment the gray fog that smothered every day lifted.

  She really wasn’t sure if that was how you were supposed to pet his ears—she’d never had a dog—but she couldn’t stop playing with them. They were huge. The dog’s face was old, graying. His name was Sirius, and he was not particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of running. He kept lying down whenever she tried to warm him up. He seemed like the kind of dog who would prefer to sleep, and Sadie liked that.

  “What’s up, cocaptain? I got this little wiener,” Lucie said, walking up next to her with a long squirming sausage of a mutt in her arms. “She’s a wiener, but I can tell she’s a winner.”

  “My dog’s name is Sirius.” Sadie showed her the tag.

  “You should ask your parents if you can take him home,” Lucie said. “I want this one, but we already have too many fosters.”

  Lucie wandered away, cooing at the dog as though she’d never seen one before. “We’ll find you a place to belong,” Lucie sang.

  It was the start of summer before her senior year. Sadie was sure it was too late to get a dog. How would she take it with her into a dorm room? Sadie looked into Sirius’s big, dark eyes. They were trusting and understanding. When she walked away, he followed. He seemed like a loyal companion.

  “Or a sidekick,” George said, petting Sirius. Sirius grinned amiably, rolling over. George seemed to like him too.

  When she had started cross-country right before high school, Sadie had loved running for the time with George: practices were long, boring stretches of green she could hazily dream through. But Lucie wouldn’t let her dream. They stayed in step, in the present, side by side, captain and vice captain. It had been
easy to get lost in Lucie instead of George until they both reached that silent, crystal-clear plane of endorphin high. But something without a name had changed, moving in and colonizing her, and she was slipping back into dreams. It was getting harder and harder….Lucie talked and Sadie could barely hear her with George siphoning off her attention.

  “All right, warriors!” shouted Lucie, and the whole team perked up. “Stay on the sidewalks, look after your dog, and don’t run too hard. Let’s have some fun!”

  All around her, pit bulls and labs and Chihuahuas and girls trotted off into the leafy neighborhood. Lucie, who was normally in the lead, had already started to lag behind. She was shouting, “Come on, Snickers!” and jogging backward, trying to coax the short-legged dog forward.

  Sadie tugged on Sirius’s leash and started jogging. He loped along like an old man. But after a few steps, it was like he remembered better days. He ran hard, in step with her.

  They left the rest of the girls behind. Sadie and Sirius were running without thinking, completely in tune.

  “Don’t stop,” George panted next to her. Sirius was looking around, scouting for danger with his unrivaled sense of smell. The cobblestones beneath their feet were difficult to navigate, but the three of them flew down the road. George glanced at his watch. “We’ve got fifteen minutes to make the drop.”

  Sirius, vigilant even in a sprint, barked as he smelled an enemy. George pulled out his revolver—

  “Sadie, watch out!”

  She’d run straight into the street, and right in front of a car. Startled, she dropped Sirius’s leash. The car leaned on its horn, the driver shouting. Terrified, Sirius darted away, narrowly missing an oncoming car. He charged down the street, faster than Sadie had ever seen a dog run.

  Sadie sprinted after him, but he was going too fast. She’d never catch him.

  “Cut him off!” shouted Lucie behind her.

  Sadie’s mind turned off, and she was all legs, all speed. She veered off the road and into a series of luxurious backyards, crashing through flowers and swing sets and tiny decorative fences. She could hear the horns in the road as the few cars driving in the neighborhood watched a German shepherd racing down the street. Thank God it wasn’t crowded.

  She emerged back on the road. Sadie could see Lucie in the corner of her eye, running just as hard. Lucie was running wide. They’d had the same idea: Lucie was going to follow up from behind in case Sadie scared him backward.

  She’d managed to get just ahead of him. “Sirius!” She shouted with what little breath she had. She jumped to grab him by the collar, but she felt his fur slip through her fingers instead. She landed with a hard crash on the asphalt, scraping her knees bloody. Lucie was feet behind her. At the last moment, Sadie grabbed Sirius’s leash and with a hard yank, brought him tumbling down. He let out a pitiful yelp as his collar choked him.

  She crawled toward the whimpering dog. He cowered from her.

  “What were you thinking?” Lucie screamed.

  “It was an accident,” Sadie said, trying to calm Sirius, who was panting hard. He cried and cried. Sadie petted him. She knew exactly how he felt: a brush with death that shuts down your entire mind, even though your body is fine. She knew what it was like to feel real fear.

  “You weren’t thinking. You were being a goddamn absentminded idiot, like you always are. What if a car had hit him! What if it had hit you?”

  Sadie grabbed the leash firmly and stood up. Sirius pulled away but wasn’t strong enough to run again.

  “It was an accident,” she said again, struggling with the dog.

  “Are you stupid? You can cause an accident, Sadie! Just because it was an accident doesn’t mean no one is to blame!” Lucie shouted.

  And then Sadie burst into tears.

  * * *

  The dogs had been taken back to the shelter and all the other girls had gone home, but Sadie sat alone on the curb waiting for her parents to pick her up. The sky grew dark and the wind howled. Sadie shivered. She let her mind wander, but she was too angry to think of George. She thought of telling her parents she would never run again. The pleasure of arguing in her head passed the time, but even that grew dim. After half an hour, she stood and started pacing. It was getting cold. After an hour, she pulled out her phone and texted her dad, but he didn’t answer. She called her mom, but no one picked up.

  Lucie had apologized, and so had Sadie. But she was still angry at herself, and sad for Sirius. She would have liked to take him home, but she didn’t deserve him. She deserved to be alone.

  The wind rustled the leaves above. She sat on the curb, curled up her knees, and counted the seconds as they ticked by.

  She barely noticed when Old Charlotte rolled to a squealing stop in front of her.

  Her mother swung open the driver’s-side door. The windows were still wrecked and inoperable. Her dad waved from the passenger’s seat.

  “Did you have fun?” he called.

  “You’re late,” Sadie said. She could feel her face getting red, tears of mysterious origin piling up in her eyes. She shook them away. There was no reason to be upset.

  “Sorry, sweetie. Last-minute customers. Maybe it’s time to try for your license again.”

  “It’s fine,” Sadie said curtly. She was squished between her parents. She was way too big to be sitting in the middle. Her mom nearly killed it trying to get the car in gear.

  “So…we didn’t have fun,” her dad said.

  “Brilliant observation.”

  “Hey,” her mom said sharply.

  They rode in silence for several minutes, save the screech of Old Charlotte’s brakes.

  “Why didn’t you go out with the other girls tonight?”

  “I just want to go home. Henry has band practice.”

  “What about Lucie?”

  “She’s got better things to do. She just got a puppy.”

  The car was full of silence for too long. They pulled up to a stoplight and they were left only with the rumble of Old Charlotte.

  “Maybe…you could try and make some more friends?” her dad suggested.

  “I have friends.”

  “You have Henry and Lucie,” her mom said. Her dad shifted uncomfortably. “And God knows we love them, but don’t you think you might want more friends? You spend all day in the basement on that computer.”

  “I’m doing schoolwork,” Sadie said.

  “Sure,” her mom said.

  “I like being alone. I’m used to it,” Sadie said.

  “What does that mean?”

  Sadie said nothing. As long as no one said anything, everything would always be all right. What is nothing plus nothing? she wondered.

  “Whatever,” Sadie mumbled, her heart pounding. She was angry and she didn’t know why. Who did she have to be angry with but herself? She swallowed her rage, focused on her breathing. Deep, rageful breaths so hard they made her hands shake. She reached out to the radio.

  “Don’t turn it on. We’ll never get it off.”

  Sadie crossed her arms; then, with a compulsion she would later be unable to explain, she reached out and turned the radio on anyway.

  “Sadie, you know this thing only plays static.” Her dad pushed the buttons in random patterns, trying to convince it to give up its half-hearted attempt to find the music lost in the noise.

  “Here, let me do it,” her mom said, one hand on the wheel, one fiddling with the radio.

  “Stop! Watch what you’re doing!” Sadie yelled. The sound of overwhelmingly loud static filled the car, like psychological torture. Somehow the radio switched to the tape player, and they recoiled as the tail end of “Here Comes the Sun” began playing.

  Sadie’s heart sank. Her mom’s foot stepped off the gas as she recognized The Tape. Sadie watched the color drain from her father’s face as he
first doubted, and then wondered how The Tape could have possibly gotten into this car to be deployed at this moment.

  The music continued. They didn’t speak for the rest of the way home. Sadie could feel her heart hitting her rib cage, and wondered what her parents felt.

  They pulled into the driveway and sat for a moment.

  “Can we just go inside?”

  “How long has that tape been in here?” her dad asked over the music.

  Her mom said: “It must have been playing when we—”

  “Yes, but this is the radio I put in right when we started restoring her years ago—”

  The song got louder so she had to yell over The Tape.

  “I put it in there and it got stuck!” Sadie yelled. “Now can we please go inside?”

  Her parents didn’t move. She often wondered if they really remembered the crash. They’d been so torn up, she doubted it.

  Her mom turned off the car and the music stopped.

  “I don’t remember it, but that must have been what was playing when we crashed,” her mom said, looking at them both. “Do you remember? It sends a chill right through you.”

  “I don’t remember either,” said her dad.

  “Me neither. Now can we please get out of the car?” Sadie snapped. Her parents obliged slowly, as they always were these days.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” her mom asked. Sadie was still standing in the driveway.

  “No,” Sadie said. Her parents didn’t ask her any questions. They went inside, lost in memories. She watched as the lights turned on in their offices on the second floor. Through those windows, her parents were like pictures in frames.

  Things were so much simpler now. How was it that every day was also so much harder? It was like a riddle without an answer. Sometimes a riddle is just a meaningless string of words. She looked up at the lights in the house.

  She felt like a picture on a wall staring across at other pictures, pretending to see them with painted eyes. Every person in the whole world was a lonely piece of beautiful art.