Capture the World
Page 17
She smiles. “I’ll be honest … I’m surprised and glad. My grandson is a fine looking young man, but sometimes I worry about him. I worry that he’ll get passed over. That he’s too reserved and kind-hearted to put himself out there.” She gives me a strange look. “I guess I underestimated him.”
She doesn’t know him as well as she thought. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Matthew since his first letter. He put himself out there even when it made him uncomfortable. He’s a fighter, a quiet fighter who holds his hands up, protecting himself until the time is right to fight harder.
“What does he need?” I ask suddenly. “From me?”
Because now it’s time for me to put myself on the line.
Her smile grows.
TWENTY-SIX
The real world
Going public
IT’S MATTHEW’S FIRST basketball game of the season, and I’m in the school gym, sitting near the floor wearing a jersey Perlita Moretti procured for me. Matthew’s jersey, his number—fifteen—flashing the stands.
People stare.
I hope I’m not making a mistake.
Despite the relationship we’ve built outside of school, he hasn’t shown much interest in a public one. Honestly, neither have I, but I need him. I need his calm confidence, his touch of arrogance, his advice, and his confessions. He’s a safe place.
I want to be that same place for him, the place he goes when he’s arguing with his brother, when things with Kagen get to be too much, and when his deafness seems better than hearing the world.
My phone dings.
The Brilliant One: You’re really doing this?
Me: #forreal
The Brilliant One: #goodluck
The crowd cheers.
My heart goes wild, soaring and plummeting, confused because it doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be feeling.
I am sweating bullets.
The boys run onto the court.
Matthew doesn’t see me right away because I’m too used to blending in with the crowd. It’s habit. Even when I try not to blend, I blend.
If I had a super power, I’d be a human chameleon.
They go straight into the first quarter, eight minutes on the clock, and even though I don’t know much about the game, I know right away our team is good.
Matthew owns the court; the confidence he lacks off of it is gone. He knows where every player is, his eyes rarely leaving the ball.
Three minutes in, Matthew makes a pass to Kagen who takes the shot and scores.
The crowd cheers.
“Are you serious?” a crude voice asks.
I look up to find Vanessa Meyers sitting two bleachers above me.
She sneers at my jersey. “Did you get hit in the head, crazy girl? You’ve got to be kidding if you think—”
“Stuff it, Vanessa,” Reese Gavin warns. “You’re just jealous because your boyfriend has a thing for her.”
Am I the only one who didn’t know about Kagen?
Vanessa pouts, throwing daggers with her eyes.
The first quarter ends with our team ahead by two points.
The boys jog off of the court, each of them taking direction from the coach before grabbing a bottled water.
It’s then Matthew looks up.
I try to control my face, but I fail miserably. It takes everything I have not to put my head down.
Matthew freezes, squints, takes a step toward the bleachers, stops, and stares.
I smile, point at the jersey, and then throw him a thumbs up.
Please, please let this be okay!
The coach calls Matthew’s name, but he doesn’t budge.
He smiles, eyes lighting up.
“Moretti!” Coach Crowley hollers.
Throwing me an apologetic shrug, a wink, and a quick ‘wait for me’, Matthew jogs back onto the court.
I pay no attention to the rest of the game. Unless Matthew has the ball.
“Hey, do you drive a black Camry?” a voice asks.
A young man stands next to me, impatient.
“What?”
He sighs, exasperated. “Look, do you or don’t you? There’s a 2008 black Camry with its lights on in the parking lot, and someone told me they thought it belonged to you. Reagan, right?”
I glance behind me, down onto the court, and then back at him. “It sounds like my aunt’s,” I admit.
“Good deal, I’m out.” He disappears.
Standing, I make my way down the bleachers clutching the purse my aunt loaned me.
The Camry’s lights are indeed on, and I stumble toward it, sifting through the handbag.
“Looking for these?” Vanessa Meyers saunters out of the shadows, two of her friends, Bethany Ford and Kambry Karmichael, flanking her.
I stiffen. “What do you want?”
“For you to back off. Go back to hiding with your crazy mama, and leave Matthew and Kagen alone.”
“I’m not doing anything to them.”
“Promise me,” she hisses.
I turn to leave only to discover two more girls behind me, a tall blonde and a petite redhead.
Silence, long and eerie, stretches between us.
“Maybe you just need time to think about it,” Vanessa suggests.
Bethany, a short, curvy brunette, opens the Camry’s door.
Shoved from behind, I fall against the side of the car, pain blossoming in my shoulder. Adrenaline shoots through me, and I throw my fists out, trying my best to connect with anything.
It’s pointless. These aren’t one-on-one odds.
Forcing me into the car, they slam the door shut.
Key remote in hand, Vanessa locks it, grinning. The girls circle the car.
I panic, hitting the unlock button, only to have it lock again.
“You’ve got to let me out!” I beg.
They don’t understand!
“Promise me, Reagan,” Vanessa goads.
My heart races, her voice growing distant. I forget she’s there.
My head pounds, my chest tightens, and I clutch my throat, gasping. I can’t breathe. I seriously can’t breathe.
They don’t understand!
I shriek, a frantic, crazy sound so loud and shrill it turns my throat raw, the yell growing and growing until I am nothing except the scream, completely lost to the fear.
Bethany presses her hands to her ears, her eyes frantic. “Oh my God! What is she doing?”
“We’ve got to get out of here!” the redhead hisses, terrified.
Vanessa raps on the window. “Shut up, psycho! It’s just a freaking car!”
“Unlock it, Vanessa!” the blonde begs.
I’ve forgotten how to do anything other than shriek, my fists pounding on the car door. I’m bruising my knuckles, but I don’t care.
“What the hell?” a deep voice yells.
Tears streak my face, fast and hard.
The door falls open. “Shit, Reagan.” It’s Matthew’s voice. He scoops me up, still screaming, and I climb him like a cat, claws digging, clutching him so hard I know I’m leaving nail marks in his skin.
“She just went nuts!” Vanessa shouted. “All we did was put her in the car!”
A crowd forms, whispers, spreads rumors.
“Shh,” Matthew soothes, body angled so that my face remains hidden as he plows through the crowd. “Call her Aunt Trish!” he orders. “Use my phone. I’ve got the work line programmed.”
Spots float before my eyes, and I know before it happens I’m going to pass out.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The real world
The truth shall set you free
I COME TO inside my house to find six faces peering down at me.
My lips part, scream building.
A hand flies over my mouth. “Shhh,” Aunt Trish soothes. “Your mom, Reagan.”
That’s all she has to say. Immediately, I’m calm, nausea billowing through my system. “I’m going to … I’m—”
A
unt Trish plops a bowl in front of my face just in time, and I sink onto the living room carpet and dry heave, so embarrassed I want to crawl away and disappear forever.
“What was that about?” Kagen Raddock asks, voice low and strained.
He and Matthew are the only two present from school, and they’re still wearing their uniforms.
“When she—” Aunt Trish begins.
A different kind of panic sets in. “No!”
Matthew kneels next to me. “No one here is going to hurt you. That was brutal, Reagan. What’s going on?” His hand finds my waist, his fingers gripping the jersey I’m wearing. For him.
Suddenly, I feel the weight of it, too much emotion bearing down on me, too many secrets locked up in my head, heart, and soul. From the moment Matthew and I wrote our first letter, I’d started sharing pieces of the truth, of me, and with each piece I started feeling stronger, buoyed. It’s time to let it all go.
My eyes fall closed. “My mom had her nervous breakdown when I was seven years old. We don’t know what caused it. What set her off, but I was …”
I can’t do it.
Aunt Trish squeezes my shoulder. “Reagan was with her mother when Georgia started having trouble with reality. The day she had her breakdown, she locked Reagan inside of a closet. It took five hours for us to find out where. It was inside a friend’s pool house.”
I am naked in front of these people, and it feels weird. Not good or bad. Weird.
“Jesus!” Kagen swears.
I avoid all eye contact, not because I care if they know. It isn’t about them knowing what happened to me. It’s never been about that. It’s always been about my mother. This fear I have of people not accepting her out of ignorance and terror.
“She isn’t a monster,” I insist. “She isn’t! She thought I was my sister. She thought she was keeping me safe. We were under a thunderstorm watch, and she thought she was saving me.”
Matthew’s fingers tighten on me. “No one thinks she’s a monster.”
Kagen starts to protest, and Matthew elbows him.
I stare up at him. “You’ve seen her, Matthew. You’ve spent time with her. You know what she’s like. She wouldn’t—”
“I know. I believe you.” Taking my hand, he squeezes it.
Sobs rush out of me, unchecked and raw, bleeding from a wound with the scab ripped off. My head falls into Matthew’s lap, and I ugly cry all over his clothes. He smooths my hair, and shushes gently, soothing me.
Kagen watches us, an unreadable expression on his face.
I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it: the rumors, ‘waking’ up to discover I wasn’t as invisible as I thought I was, or the recent drama.
The video project has never seemed so important.
Francesca and Perlita Moretti, two of the other faces leaning over me, leave the circle to flank Aunt Trish.
“If you need anything …” Francesca says
“I know,” Trish replies, hugging herself. “Thank you.”
Francesca inhales, her gaze passing over the room. “We should go and let you rest.”
I stiffen, and Matthew’s fingers tighten in my hair.
He looks up, eyes bright. “Can I stay?”
The adults freeze, the question an obvious foray into dangerous parental territory.
“I’ll stay on the couch. Downstairs,” he promises.
Francesca shakes her head. “I don’t—”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Trish breaks in, surprising everyone. Me most of all.
Uncle Bobby sputters. “What? You think—”
“I trust Reagan.”
Turning my head to the side, I stare up at her, stunned.
Her gaze drops, and I see the truth hidden in her face. It’s not so much trust as need. She knows I need this. She knows I need someone to do something for me, and not because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s the ‘Reagan’ thing to do.
My heart swells, tears threatening. A strange feeling steals over me, settling inside of my heart, making a home there.
Francesca opens her mouth to argue, but Perlita stops her. “I’m with Trish. I think we’re past due putting more trust in Matthew, too. He’s hearing impaired, not helpless.”
Matthew freezes.
I tuck my fingers into his shirt, pressing, supporting.
“Nonna!” Francesca protests.
Perlita ignores her.
“Ma?” Matthew pleads.
She glances down at him, sighs. “Couch. Downstairs.” Gaze passing to Perlita, she stares at the old woman before shaking her head. “Let’s go.”
Kagen pats Matthew on the shoulder, the gesture awkward. “I’ll talk to Vanessa and take care of whatever that was.”
Feet move away. The front door opens, closes.
And then, suddenly, just like that, the house is blissfully silent.
Aunt Trish and Uncle Bobby retreat to the kitchen, to my uncle’s paperwork, coffee, and tea. The smell and the sound drifts into the living room. Comfortable. Safe.
My head remains cradled in Matthew’s lap, and he strokes my face. “So, my jersey, huh?”
“Was it too much?”
“No! No, it was perfect.”
Staring up at him, I lift my fingers and trail them down his jaw. “Why did you try so hard with me? From the beginning. Sitting next to me. Talking to me. The letters, the videos, the time you spent with my mom, and the fight you got in with Kagen?”
He closes his eyes, savoring my touch before re-opening them, his gaze certain. “Because I’ve known since the beginning that it was you for me. Ever since the time I saw you standing in your mother’s bedroom window brushing her hair. You were so small, maybe eight or nine years old, and yet you were so gentle. I felt your love for her, and I remember thinking—later because I was too young to think this then—that the love you had in you, this gentle touch you carried inside, was worth fighting for. Because I see sunsets, and I knew looking at you with her, that you did, too.” He leans over me. “I’m not as fiery as Kagen, but I fight for the things I want.”
He is exactly what I need. Him. Matthew Morretti, his rugged, dimpled face, and all of his ‘keep it reals’.
“You’re worth fighting for, too,” I whisper.
For a long time, we stare, his fingers on my face. My fingers on his.
Suddenly, he grins, clearing his throat. “So, next thing we know your mother is going to plan us a trip to Italy.”
I laugh. “Ancient Italy, I hope.”
“Even better.”
“Really? You want to go to ancient Italy?”
Matthew shrugs, eyes glued to mine. “Why not?” His thumb rubs my bottom lip, eyes darkening. “You don’t want me there? Because I’d make a fantastic gladiator. Just so you know.”
“Gladiators die,” I whisper.
We’ve moved closer, and my heart is hammering.
“I’ll make it a magnificent death,” he promises. “The kind they make movies about. The kind that transcends time.”
“No gladiator. Just you.” My eyes travel his frame. “Just be you in Ancient Rome.”
“Just me?”
“Yeah ... because you’re real. J-just be real.”
He watches the word fall out of my lips. “Real,” he repeats. “I can do that.”
Funny, I’ve never wanted real. I’ve always preferred my mother’s fantasies. Until now.
THAT NIGHT, MATTHEW sneaks into my room because—come on—we’re teenagers.
He holds me, and I hold him, and it’s not the least bit awkward. It’s safe and real.
I don’t have to imagine what it would be like to have him here anymore, fantasizing about the way his arms feel around me or wondering how big he’d look in my paper world.
His arms feel like home, and he looks powerful inside of my kingdom.