That same year, Keith withered while I flourished.
High school stole his confidence. His friends. His happiness. He spent days in bed, not talking, not eating. Just sleeping or staring at the ceiling.
Lee came over a couple of times, but Keith would lock his door and turn his music up very loud. He kept listening to that depressing Australian band and their song about thieving birds over and over. I hated it.
“Get out of here,” Lee said to me one afternoon. He’d caught me spying on him from the back stairwell.
“You’re fat,” I replied.
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“Well, you are.”
“Yeah, big fucking deal. You think this is my first time at the fat boy rodeo? If you want to hurt me, you’re gonna have to try harder, kid.”
“Leave Keith alone. He doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Lee walked down the hall toward me. He had khaki-colored parachute pants on and they made a swishing sound when he moved.
“You need to stay out of things that aren’t any of your business,” he snapped.
“My brother is my business.”
“God, you’re a pinhead. Don’t you get it? I actually care about him. He’s going to fail out of school if I don’t help him.”
“I’ll kill you,” I said, arching my back and creeping forward on my hands and knees. I curled my fingernails into the hardwood floor deep enough to leave marks. “If you don’t leave him alone, I’ll rip your head off. I’ll cut your fat body into fat little pieces. I’ll—”
“Drew!”
We both started. Keith stood in the hallway. His shoulders drooped. His eyes were very red and his cheeks were very hollow.
Lee trotted toward him. Swish, swish, swish, went his pants. They went into his room and closed the door.
*
I tossed and turned in my bed. Pilot curled at my feet as always.
A soft voice called my name.
I tossed more.
In my mind, the moon was full and I dreamed of wolves. I dreamed of power I would someday have.
“Drew…” The voice came again, pulling me into wakefulness.
“Go away,” I muttered, waving my arm.
“Can I sleep with you? I had a nightmare.”
My eyes fluttered open. Siobhan, sweet Siobhan, stood beside my bed, wearing a flowered nightgown and with her honey hair all rumpled. Her soft face held a flat expression, like she had no feelings, no depth, inside of her.
I sat up. I knew that look. I’d seen it in the mirror myself ever since that dark summer night. Not in New Hampshire, but another night, a year earlier, here, in my very own room. A night when I was not alone and not safe. A night when a monster had first prowled in, too familiar to resist.
A night before.
Before I hit Soren.
Before I became bad.
“Drew,” Siobhan whimpered. “Please. I’m scared.”
“Yeah, fine,” I mumbled, thinking of all the times Keith had comforted me up in Concord when Pilot wasn’t around. The way I’d needed him to feel protected. The bed creaked as my sister crawled beneath the sheets. I rolled onto my side. She curled against me.
*
“I need to talk to you,” I told Keith. My legs trembled.
He sat on the edge of the flagstone patio. The leaves had all fallen. The forecast called for a rare December snow. Something bright and glossy fluttered in his hands.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing.
Keith held it out to me. It was a brochure from the wildlife preserve we’d visited over a year ago. Semper Liberi, the place that kept animals too damaged to live on their own.
“I thought I wanted to work there,” he said listlessly. “Someday.”
“But now?”
“Now I don’t want to anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because sometimes trying to make a difference is worse than not trying at all.”
“Oh.”
“What did you want to talk about?”
“Siobhan.”
Keith blinked at me. Those coppery eyes.
“What about Siobhan?” he asked.
I told him how she had come to my room. How I let her sleep in my bed. The things she’d tried to do to me. Her hot tears on my back and small hands on my body, all over, everywhere, becoming more desperate the more I pulled away. Until I felt like my rejection was hurting her. Until I didn’t know what the right thing to do was anymore.
Keith turned very pale. Then he got up and ran inside the house.
Should I not have told him? I followed Keith. I found him locked in the downstairs bathroom. He stayed in there a long time. The noises he made meant he was either really sick or really sad. Or both.
He wouldn’t look at me when he came out.
“I’m sorry,” was all he said. “I’m so sorry.”
chapter
thirty-three
the sea
Jordan climbs up onto the rock first. I don’t look, but I know it’s her. The clues are there. She’s quiet, contained, so different from Lex and his blundering movements. And she must have seen more of my charm than my strangeness tonight, because she’s kind. She’s gentle. Jordan touches my arm. My back. The bruise around my eye. I let her. It’s okay. I’m lying down now, so it’s not like she sees too much of me.
My panting increases in her presence. I guess that’s why she’s touching. She wants me to stay calm. But she keeps saying, Win, Win, and that’s what makes me shake and pant more. She doesn’t know I hate my name, that every time I hear it, I’m reminded of what I’ve lost. My family. My identity. My innocence.
I’m reminded of him.
She keeps talking, a sad little soliloquy. She tells me she’s from California and that she doesn’t fit in here. She tells me she’s never really fit in anywhere, but that the money and elitism at our school intimidates her. She says this embarrasses her in ways she doesn’t understand. She tells me about life in California, about public school and kids who ride the bus and who hang out at strip malls or in front of liquor stores. She tells me about doing too many drugs and making too many bad decisions and deciding to come here so that she could be in a place where her past didn’t have to define her. She says earning a scholarship made her proud until she got here and realized it was something to be ashamed of. She tells me about her mother and visiting family in Guadalajara at Christmastime. She talks about something called Las Posadas, a Catholic tradition in Mexico where families walk door to door, pretending to be Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay before Jesus is born. And she sings to me in Spanish, sweet, lilting words I cannot understand. She does not talk about her father.
I don’t answer. I can’t and I don’t want to. The moon is leaving, very quickly, a pale shadow slipping behind the neighboring mountains. Has it taken part of me with it? I haven’t changed, and so yes, I think, yes, it has.
Eventually Lex scrambles up, too. He sits on the other side of me. He smells of cigarettes but doesn’t light up. He says nothing, which I appreciate.
Together we wait for the sun.
after
We do not say that possibly a dog talks to itself. Is that because we are so minutely acquainted with its soul?
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
chapter
thirty-four
half-life
The night is gone.
Extinguished.
Extinct.
The sun is barely visible, but the ripe colors of the sky blossom, bright and welcoming. The memories rip through me, along with that nostalgic pang of mourning, the kind that marks both a beginning and an end. I do not move. I remain on the rock, on my stomach, and I do not move. I can’t.
Jordan and Lex both leave the summit. They have to pee, they tell me, which I don’t doubt, but they’re gone such a long time that I’m pretty sure their motives are multiple.
What do I do? I creep to the
edge of the boulder, past the scrub brush and a hive of carpenter ants, almost to the point of no return. I’ve failed again. I’ve failed like I’ve always failed. The disappointment and self-loathing push me ever closer to the drop. Spite makes everything easier, and in this moment I feel like I could do it. I could take this leap of faith that I failed to take all those years ago.
But the wolf won’t let me.
Come out, then, I plead with it. Show yourself. Don’t hide.
I can feel it inside of me. It is feral. Hungry. But it doesn’t come out. Instead, the wolf inside me turns around three times, tamping down hope and healing and grace like soft meadow grass. Then it lies down. It tucks its tail. It closes its eyes.
I try. I can’t wake it. It’s too late.
I scoot back from the edge. Sit on my bare ass. I have to accept the truth in front of my nose. This wasn’t my cycle.
My mind clicks ahead, shuttering into the future. Twenty-nine days until the next full moon. What else can I do but wait? This cycle wasn’t for naught. I know more. I think I was close. Now I understand the strength of the moon. The need to be near to it, to be naked, to find as much wildness within myself as I can, right down to my most elemental parts. That’s where change begins. Power, too. I know that now. I will do this again. I will try harder.
I hear voices. My body starts. I take a quick inventory of the approaching figures. It’s just Jordan and Lex. My surprise at their return is tempered only by my relief that they haven’t brought anyone else with them. I thought they would.
“Do us a favor,” Lex calls. He throws something at me. “Put these on, okay? Sunrise means it’s time to cover your junk.”
I look at the items on the ground. My boxers and pants. I acquiesce and pick them up. I can fool people, but maintaining distance is key. I think I clung to these two last night because of some inner conflict. Inner resistance. Weakness. It is a mistake I cannot afford to make again.
When I’m dressed, Jordan comes over.
“Sit down,” she says.
“Why?”
“I want to tell you something.”
Maybe she wants to tell me how worried she is about me. Or ask if I’m okay. I ready myself for her questions. I will say the right things. I will say the things that will make her leave. The things that will make her not care if I live or die. I’ve done it before.
I can attract, and I can also repel.
As I sit, I glance at Lex. He’s about twenty feet away, standing with his back against a small boulder. He’s looking at his phone.
Jordan and I face the north. We can see nothing but trees.
“What do you want to tell me?” I ask.
“Last night,” she begins, “I wasn’t totally honest with you.”
“Okay.”
“I was drunk.”
“Yeah.”
“But that’s not an excuse, you know? After you left, I was talking with Penn and his friends. They were being total guy jerks, asking me why I dress the way I do, why I haven’t figured out how to get guys to like me, and if I’m some kind of angry, man-hating feminazi.”
“Sounds like typical Penn.”
“So I told him to meet me in the woods. That I’d show him what I know about getting guys to like me.”
I stare at her. “You did that? Why?”
Her face is all pinched and her tired eyes burn hot. “Do you have to ask?”
“Yes!”
“Because I was pissed! Because I wanted to be more powerful than him.”
“But what were you going to do?”
“I don’t know!”
“You don’t know?”
Jordan folds her arms and leans away from me. “You don’t get to judge me. My choices are mine, okay? I just wanted to say thank you. For what you did. You looked out for me. No one’s ever done that before.”
I blink, confused. I’ve made her mad and she’s thanking me?
“Win.”
I glance up. Lex stands before me.
“We need to talk.”
“Oh, okay.” I’m not really listening. I’m still thinking about what Jordan just said. I’m still sort of stunned.
“I mean it.” Lex sounds serious. He has one hand on his hip and his phone in the other.
I nod. “You get reception out here? I don’t.”
He crouches beside me. Slips the phone away. “Stop it, Win. You need to listen to me. Now.”
“Sure.”
“I’m worried about you. We both are.”
I rub my palms on the front of my pants. I feel hot and it’s hard to breathe. “D-did you, like, call somebody? About me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Jordan reaches out. She places a hand on my shoulder and pushes down with her warm fingers.
The pressure’s too much. I get up and start walking. I think I should go. I think I should get off this mountain.
Lex follows, trotting alongside me. “It’s that guy, that dead guy, right? You think you killed him?”
My stride falters. “M-maybe.”
“Win, you didn’t. Seriously.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he insists.
“I don’t.”
Lex grabs my arm, stopping me before I can reach the descending trail. He pulls me toward him.
“Look, I’ve been here, too,” he says roughly. “Okay?”
“Where?”
“Here! Hating myself. Wanting to end it all.”
“You have?”
He blushes. “I think you know that.”
“I guess.”
“I felt helpless then, Win. Hopeless, too. I don’t want you to feel that way.”
“I’m not going to kill myself.”
“But you’ve tried before. When you were just a kid.”
“I didn’t try,” I say.
“Yes, you did. You told me. You were going to jump off that bridge. You had a plan.”
A plan.
(Get up, Drew. We’re leaving. I’ll tell you why when we get there.)
“I didn’t try,” I say again, but I feel myself slipping. Why doesn’t he get it? Why doesn’t he get that that’s the whole point? The whole problem? “I changed my mind.”
Lex continues to stare. The look on his face is not easy for me to recognize. It’s too serious. Too tense. Behind him, Jordan gets up from where we sat looking out at the trees. She comes toward us, wiping dirt from her hands as she walks. My heart jackhammers. I don’t know what they’re trying to do. I don’t know what they’re trying to prove, but I’m uncomfortable. I’m more than uncomfortable.
This is painful.
“You need help,” Lex says, and I shake my head. I mean, who could help me? It’s not like people haven’t tried before.
But what is there to say when what’s inside of me is unspeakable?
“You can’t do anything,” I tell Lex, and it’s true. My own mom gave up on me. She’s the one who sent me away to boarding school. She’s the one who said I needed to be somewhere where people didn’t know who I was or what I’d done. I don’t think she was wrong about that.
“Yes, we can. We’re taking you to a hospital. A psychiatric one. Right now. I know where to go. Okay, Win? Everything will be okay.”
Will it?
I find that very hard to believe.
chapter
thirty-five
to the stars
We leave Eden.
We stumble out of the woods.
The bridge appears in the distance.
My past catches up with me.
Ssssnap!
The three of us trudge along the edge of the river. My legs hurt and I lag behind the others. I watch as her small fingers dart out to grab at the blooming vines of jasmine that cluster along the roadside. She plucks the white flowers, one-two-three, then crumples them, scattering the ruined petals like bread crumbs.
Their conversation floats
back.
“Why do we have to walk?” she asks, craning her neck to look up at him. “This is taking forever.”
“Because he can’t ride the bus.”
“He can’t do anything.”
“Shut up,” I call out.
She ignores me. “How much farther is it?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“That’s my job,” she replies brightly. “I ask questions. You answer them. Every question has an answer, you know.” She circles back to me, worming her fingers into mine, tugging at my hand. I shake her off. She laughs, then grabs for me again, this time snaking her thin arm around my waist. I shiver.
“Stop it,” I tell her.
“I love you,” she says sweetly. Too sweetly.
“Leave me alone.”
She pouts. “You’re being mean.”
I’m not mean, I think, but then she skips ahead and takes his hand, and my heart flares with something black, like jealousy or ire, and so maybe I am. Mean.
A bridge appears in the distance. A rusted span stretched high above the glassy water.
“Tell me where we’re going,” she says.
“We’re almost there.”
“But what’ll it be like?”
“It’ll be good,” he says. “Better than good. Where we’re going, we’ll never have to grow up and turn into anything we don’t want to be.”
She thinks about this. “Really?”
“Really. Remember the story of Peter Pan? It’ll be just like that.”
“You mean, like magic?”
“Just like magic.”
She nods solemnly. “I like that.”
“Me too.”
“What is there to do there?”
“Well, what’s your favorite thing in the whole world?”
“Favorite what?”
“Anything?”
“Horses,” she says. “Arabian ones. Like the Black Stallion.”
“Then that’s what’ll be waiting for you. Your very own horse.”
“Huh?”
“What’s your least favorite thing?”
She begins to spin in a circle, slow then fast, long hair streaming out with comet-tail force. Her eyes close, very tight, and her pale face fills with lines, like a tiger’s mask.
“Monsters,” she whispers.
He glances at the bridge, then back at me. “Then that’s what won’t be there. No monsters. Ever.”
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