Sticks and Stones

by Angèle Gougeon

  “Lem,” she whispered, didn’t know what to say, and he shook his head again.

  “There’s something wrong inside of me,” he told her, “and I fight it every day.” He reached out, slipped the picture into the drawer, pressed it to the very back, wedged it beneath the pliers and the screwdriver. “Don’t you tell those boys, Sandra,” he said, voice a sudden hardness, and her breath caught, old Lem, strong Lem, wolf behind his eyes, and this time she shook her head. “I’ve done right by them,” he said and Sandra wanted to tell him he didn’t need to explain. He never needed to explain. She understood. She really did.

  “Their mother…” his voice closed off, clearing it roughly as he looked away, fingers smoothing over the counter as he shut the drawer, like he was shutting the secrets inside, like they could somehow stay that way, secure and unknown in the dark. “She was a bad seed. Should’ve known, really … but she gave me those boys, so how could I hold a grudge?” She’d never seen him so unsure, not even that time in her bedroom, and Lem quickly pushed himself away from the drawer, from the counter. He found a glass and moved to the sink, letting it gush clear and fast, until the glass was full.

  “And then I had to take care of them,” he continued. “And … things … kept happening. Daniel’s too young to remember, but that man tried to take him away and…”

  Sandra’s own throat closed up with the implication, arms held tight as she stared at his back.

  “Things started slipping. I pushed through. The boys needed me so I…” Lem raised his hand, gripping the glass, but didn’t take a sip. It sounded like he could use it. “I worry about Jack,” he admitted.

  Sandra moved, covered his hand with her own. “We look after him. Me, you, and Danny.”

  “He’s got so much anger in him.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “You see that?” Lem quirked one brow, smile hinted at through the lines of his mouth. The water sloshed in his glass. His hands were unsteady.

  “Woman’s intuition,” she said.

  His laugh was a deep, rich sound. “I knew I was missing something.”

  “You asked me to look after them, remember? You know I will.”

  “I know you will,” he repeated. “Always.”

  “Always,” she said, like a promise.

  Lem gulped his water. The glass landed on the counter too loudly. He left her there, standing in the murky light of the kitchen, twitching with secrets, something oily pressing up the bones of her spine. Something had clawed its way into Mr. Murray’s skin, she realized. Something had crawled inside of Lem. He’d sliced and diced Mr. Dan Murray and he’d liked it.

  Sandra pressed fingers to her lips, to her eyelids, and felt like crying even though her eyes were dry. She didn’t believe in demons, never really had. But maybe that was just a fancy way of describing a tarnished soul. Maybe there were angels inside of people, too. Maybe kids were angels. And then the world got to them and they never got to be angels ever again.

  That seemed about right. The world was just that cruel.

  Lem was tarnished, but he was good, too. He had saved her. All of them had. Jack and Daniel and Lem.

  They were her heroes.

  Sandra was pretty damn sure that they were going to change the entire world one day. And she’d help them. Lem could watch his boys and be so proud.

  They’d change everything.

  Down the hallway, Lem entered his bedroom. The door snicked closed, and the silence pressed down. Sandra’s heart stuttered in her chest.

  It felt like a bang.

  ~

  Halfway through the year, the school’s darling, Jonah Miles, asked Sandra out. Daniel had returned full-time to the garage and the boys and Lem were set to work late, finishing some big project Max Taylor had rigged up. They always came home talking about struts, grommets, rotors, and many other things that Sandra couldn’t make heads or tails of.

  But they were gone. So Sandra invited Jonah over, brought him inside their home and pulled him into the living room.

  She wasn’t embarrassed by their sparse house, even if they’d lived there going on three and half years now. Jonah was nicely shaped, a member of the school’s volleyball team, and he’d lent her his leather jacket for the evening. It wasn’t as big as Danny’s canvas coat, but it still wrapped her up nice and made her feel safe and snug. There was a spattering of freckles over his face and Sandra stole two of Lem’s beers from the fridge to get her courage up. Jonah wasn’t pressing, but he was definitely interested. He’d been sneaking feels all evening and Sandra shivered every time his fingers crept up her spine. There were flashes of almost-somethings, but so far no visions and Jonah was in the clear.

  She tried not to think on how she kept wishing for bigger palms, longer fingers…

  Jonah Miles was plenty enough for her.

  Quite handsome, really.

  His lips were cool, a little too soft, and he fumbled with her shirt on the living room couch. His fingers skirted over the faint scars over her stomach, didn’t even see them, and Sandra tried not to think on how a hot mouth drifting across her skin would feel.

  Jonah didn’t believe much in foreplay.

  He rubbed a bit at her breasts, had problems with her bra, and, if this was what the school’s playboy had to offer her, she wasn’t looking forward to much from the rest of her generation.

  Still, she let him continue. His bare chest was nice, very well toned, lithe and a little narrow – how the girls in her class liked, oohing and ahhing as he spiked the ball over the volleyball net, but Sandra wasn’t so sure; her boys were better. She let her hands play across his stomach and Jonah grinned at her, hair flopping forward into his eyes. He unzipped his pants and pushed them down and Sandra didn’t look because she didn’t want to think about the last time on a cement floor and—

  Jonah sucked his mouth against her neck and Sandra arched up, gave him room to get the rubber on and finally slide in.

  It wasn’t anything special.

  It didn’t hurt this time, but it didn’t feel too good either. Even if Jonah seemed to enjoy himself. His quiet grunts stopped as soon as they started and Sandra frowned until he pulled free, grinning and giving her a sloppy kiss.

  She’d expected more for her real first time.

  Jonah left and Sandra cleaned up the beer bottles, going outside to stash them in the bottom of the trash. Jack was going to get the blame, she knew. He’d put up a stink. He was the only one who didn’t replace Lem’s beers when he took one.

  Shivering in the cool air, she thought she should feel better. She’d let a boy touch her. She’d let him rut against her and … wasn’t she supposed to feel different? There had been the closing awkwardness, the urge for him to go so she could just shower, get ready and climb into bed.

  She was a little surprised not to see some kind of sign on her forehead.

  Sandra ‘C.’ and Jonah M. had sex.

  But then, she wasn’t anything special. Jonah Miles had slept with a lot of girls. Maybe a few of the teachers, too. There had been a few flashes in there, arms and creamy skin and soft breasts as he rocked into them.

  You’d think he’d be better at it.

  She was certainly disappointed.

  Climbing into bed, Sandra curled under the covers and ran her fingers over her breasts, slowly moving her hands lower.

  What would Jack be like? Or Danny? They’d both had a few girls.

  She bet they wouldn’t taste like peanut butter cookies and smell a little like dirty old gym socks.

  She could just pull Jack down or climb onto Daniel’s hips and—

  But no, those were the kind of thoughts that were best left completely un-thought. Tucking her arms back over the top of her quilt, Sandra closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep.

  When she dreamed, it was a dream full of swirling color
and lights. There were people moving to a strange beat. There was noise and music, foggy-distant. Sandra was in a bubble and she was there but she wasn’t, darkness and blinking lights and shadows converging and separating and flowing into each other and the next.

  And then it all cleared.

  And the color was jewel-toned prom dresses. The darkness was suits and smart jackets. The lights were above and on the walls and on the stage, and the music was slow but loud as couples danced and flowed across the gymnasium floor. Jack took her hand.

  She’d never see him dance.

  The bullet took him in the chest.

  The next one took her in the stomach.

  In her dream, her fall rattled her head, her hands, all her bones.

  In her dream, she lived long enough to see Trevor Davis shoot into the panicking crowd again. Her beating heart echoed the shots. One, two, three, four. And—

  Sandra woke up. Her heart paused, then it thumped, beating furiously. For a very long moment she was sure it had stopped for real.

  Then she got out of bed, went to the bathroom and threw up in the white ceramic toilet bowl. All she could see were Jack’s opened eyes, and how he’d been dead before he had even hit the floor.

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you sure it was this Trevor Davis?”

  Sandra nodded.

  “And he’s in your graduating class? Did you see how many went down?”

  Sandra shook her head.

  Jack’s fingers swept over the back of her neck. His warm thigh was pressed to hers, steady and firm. Lem’s lips stayed tight, had been thin ever since she nauseously described watching his youngest hit the ground with a hole in his heart.

  Daniel stood leaning against the wall, face like a stone mask and favoring his side a bit, like he did these days, even though the doctors said he was completely healed.

  Not again, she whispered fervently to herself. They weren’t going to get hurt because of her ever again. Except this was worse than them being hurt. This was Jack dead. Him dead and her almost certainly dead and— She hadn’t wanted to push a vision away this badly in a real long time.

  Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  “Do we have to go over this again?” Jack moved his fingers to her clenched hand, thumb rubbing gently on her wrist. Sandra wanted to tell him don’t, it was only making her feel worse. She didn’t have much control left and he was going to make her break. She couldn’t help feeling as though she was still in the dream, that it was all over and they were dead and this was some in-between, some place where she kept seeing the past on a loop, wishing for a change or for lies and only getting the awful truth.

  If she concentrated hard enough, she was sure she could feel the bullet move, deep within the sore and bruised flesh of her stomach.

  Sometimes she had to wonder what happened to the world when they changed things.

  How long could you cheat death?

  “We can wait.” Lem’s big palm came over top her head, pressing gently down, feeling her shiver and shake. “You’ve said enough. We’ll see to it.” Sandra was afraid of what that meant.

  No, Lem, she wanted to say. Yes, please, Lem.

  “Good,” Jack said. He patted her hand. He tugged her up, lifted her right off the couch with his arms. She didn’t think her knees would hold, but they did. And then they were in the hall and Sandra seemed to have missed leaving the room. Maybe she had blinked. Or maybe this really was the dream still. This wasn’t her reality, and she flowed from one story to the next. This wasn’t her. She just lived inside someone else’s skin, inside this trembling, aching girl.

  Jack pressed her down onto her bed.

  She didn’t want to sleep.

  The mattress slumped down at the side, like it was trying to tumble her off, and it only got worse when Jack sat next to her. He didn’t say anything, but she was getting used to this quieter, has-less-to-say Jack – was learning not to speak just to fill up the silences.

  “It’s late,” he said, more like a sigh, and pulled her back flat on top of the rumpled comforter. Worn threads pressed rough against her arms, cool from the hour she had been up and out. Sandra felt cold, too, but not from the room. Deep inside. Her thoughts felt stilted and slow, thawing. One of Jack’s hands curled up behind his head, the other pressed to her side, a warm line that did help her this time.

  Sandra closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at Jack, kept seeing him fall. Kept seeing him dead. Eyes squeezed tight, nothing could get to her. Nothing could see her and she could see nothing as well.

  If the covers were loose, she would’ve pulled them over her head.

  She wondered if she’d ever stop feeling like she should run away. She’d run away from home. She’d run from her visions. Now she wanted to run away from them.

  Except Lem and his boys would follow her.

  Jack shifted sideways, curled his arm around her ribs, twined his warm body to hers, and breathed out noisily, a gusting muffle right into her hair. He mumbled something, already half asleep, and Sandra shifted in response, until her head was under his chin, hands over his and on top of her chest as though it would help keep her heart in.

  In her dreams, Jack became blood and bone, a grinning skull with glittering green eyes. His ribcage bled crimson, heart thud-thumping beyond the cage of bones, bullet hole gaping dark and black and dripping something viscous and red. He reached forward with bone fingers, teeth grate-rasping and bones knuckle-cracking.

  And then Jack was Jack, but his eyes were white and his mouth was blood-painted and it bubbled out when he opened his lips.

  “Wait,” he said, but he was moving away. He was a speck in the distance, a spot on the dusty horizon, land made in shades of gray.

  “Don’t tell them,” Demon Lem said, looking out over emptiness and standing at her side. His eyes gleamed like black opals and no matter how hard she tried, he wouldn’t look her way. His hand was stone cold in hers, fingers unresponsive. The wind blew, but his hair didn’t move. His clothes stayed still. He didn’t blink.

  When he spoke, his lips remained closed.

  “It’s too late,” he said.

  Too late for what? she wanted to ask. Her lips wouldn’t open either. He turned away, her words unheard. She watched him walk across the desolate prairie plain, gray road edging the stubble field. She couldn’t follow and, within one blink and the next, the sky fell down.

  She was on the ground. Daniel leaned over her, stark shadow against the gray-lit clouds. His fingers were on her face, the first warm thing in the whole world. He pressed gently, fire-prints on her skin, touches on her eyelids and cheeks and chin. His teeth were bone-white against his dusky, golden skin. A whirl and he was away.

  Jack stood there again, in the long shadow of a tree, which wound toward her like a path. The horizon was blood-red, flares of fire-orange leaping like candle light. He wore his favorite pair of jeans, holes in the knees and frayed at the back, and a shirt she had never seen before – blue flannel, thick and new, with sharp crossovers of colors and lines.

  The air smelled of death.

  “Can you do it?” he asked. There was a gun in his hand.

  The fire raced across the fields, lit up the land and burned the image of flaming skies into her mind.

  Trevor Davis opened the gymnasium’s heavy metal doors and fired one, two, three, pop pop pop. The students fell down, pools of red and silk and chiffon layers, gurgling gasps and frightened screams. The lights flickered down, pools of starlight in red lakes.

  Pop pop pop.

  Entire graduating class dead.

  Trevor Davis turned the gun on himself and—

  Sandra woke up.

  “Jack,” she whispered frantically. “Jack? Jack?!” She shook his arm, rattling hard and his head snapped up, whole body coiling and ready to spring. A long moment of ana
lyzing the room, of making sure there was no threat, then he pulled her up, fitting her shaking body against his.

  Jack Jack Jack rolled off her lips, an endless, quiet mantra, until he gently rested his fingertips over her lips, forcing them still.

  “Can’t even get through half a night,” he said, but it was spoken softly and Jack skimmed his thumb over her mouth, nudged her shoulder with his chin, a warm brush of skin from where her shirt had gaped at her neck. It didn’t matter how much she grew; his shirts still fit her like a bag.

  “You were dead, Jack,” she said.

  “I’m right here.”

  “You—”

  “I’m right here.” Jack leaned forward. It was better than that time on the couch. Jack didn’t pull away and Sandra had never been kissed so tenderly before. He bent her backward slightly over his long arm, and awkwardly tilted his shoulders and her neck and, god, it even hurt a little. It made her feel breakable. Vulnerable. That wasn’t what Sandra wanted. She pulled him closer, harder, both arms clinching tight. She wanted the ugly memories gone. She wanted to pretend that there was just him and her and that the bullets never came and she could forget, not think, melt into his warm skin, feel her swollen lips and his big, scarred, perfect hands and the fire in her veins.

  She swayed after him when he moved away, rolling to the side so that he could get out from his half-sprawled position beneath her. Then he was on top, curved above, his hands under her shirt and he wasn’t anything like Jonah Miles.

  She didn’t get any memory-flashes with Jack.

  She didn’t need them. She already knew him, better even than she knew herself, the way his eyes went dark and he went silent and needy and oh—

  Jack’s mouth was on hers again, moving down, latching onto her neck and sucking hard, pure fire, and Sandra didn’t have time to think about much of anything at all for a very, very long time.

  ~

  The days after were quiet.

  There was something feline under Sandra’s skin. Had been ever since that night. She was a languid roll of muscles lying in the beam of light that ran across the living room floor. The carpet was rough, old, and matted, but it was also warm. And warm was good. Sandra always felt toasty warm now.