Fracture

by Megan Miranda

  I had misjudged him. I couldn’t have done this. I couldn’t care for the elderly, the sick, or the dying. I had misunderstood. Sure, he could get angry, but so could I. I had let out my frustrations on Decker. And my own parents were scared of what I had become. They didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, and that hurt worse than the burn on my hand. And Troy, he deserved to be believed even more than I did. How could someone with so much compassion be anything but good?

  I raised my fist to the open door, about to knock, but then I froze. Troy had shaken a small cup of pills onto the woman’s tray and scattered them with his fingers. Blue, pink, white, yellow. He scooped three of them back up and gripped them in his fist. Only the yellow remained. I didn’t know him that well, after all. Maybe this was how he got his painkillers. Or maybe he had a drug problem. Maybe he sold them to pay for his apartment. But really, it could all be explained away by his situation. He wasn’t perfect. He was broken. A victim of circumstance.

  Except then he walked to the sink and dropped the pills into the basin and turned on the faucet. He filled a paper cup with water as the pills washed down the drain. Then he turned back to the old woman, placed the yellow pill in her mouth, and let her sip from the small cup. I took another silent step forward, because even though I was completely perplexed, I was relieved he wasn’t stealing drugs.

  But then he leaned in close to her ear and said, “You won’t suffer much more. Don’t worry, it won’t be long now,” and his words echoed in my head, bouncing around, tearing at my memories.

  I stepped backward quickly, my shoes squeaking on the linoleum, and Troy whipped his head around. “Hi,” he said. “Did you just get here?”

  I stepped further out of the room as an answer. “Shit,” he mumbled. “Wait,” he called as I ran down the hall. He caught up with me before I reached the front lobby and pulled me into an empty room. He closed the door behind me and leaned against it, barring my exit.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said.

  “What’s not what I think? That you took her pills or that you . . .” I looked down at my sleeve, picturing the scar that lay underneath—the sharp edge, the pain, the screaming. “You . . .”

  “It’s not what you think,” he said. He held one hand out like he was trying to show me he had nothing to hide, but his other hand gripped the knob tightly, trapping me. “I swear it. I can explain. But not here. Not right now.”

  The places where the stitches had disintegrated started to itch, and I scratched at my arm. “You did this to me, didn’t you?” I pointed my finger at him and the skin around the scar stretched unnaturally. Then I swung my arm in the direction of the old woman’s room. “What are you doing to her?”

  “I’m helping her. I’m easing her suffering.”

  Pills down the drain. Razor down my arm. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes. “How, exactly, do you ease the suffering?”

  He shook his head and stepped toward me. “The only way that’s possible.”

  I was surprised by my own strength when I pushed him and he stumbled back. I threw open the door and ran down the hall, through the lobby, and out into the cold. I ran to my car, shaking from more than just the frigid air.

  I couldn’t go back to Troy. I couldn’t go to Decker. I couldn’t go home. So I drove randomly, without direction. Turning from somewhere to anywhere, anywhere to nowhere. I wondered if hell looked like this. A girl with no one, in a car, going nowhere.

  Chapter 13

  I drove past town, past Falcon Lake and the homes beyond. I drove down the same stretch of highway that Decker took last night, where the road had no shoulder, just pavement, then dirt, then thick trees. Where people had plowed a path through nature and tried to make a lasting impression. How long until the trees crept back up? Until they shot through the pavement, cracking and buckling it? How long until all evidence of us is erased?

  Then I circled back toward town because there was nothing, no one, waiting for me out there either. But I didn’t go home. I drove around in the surrounding communities—unknown, but somehow familiar. An inescapable sameness. My life, relocated. And all the while, I heard Troy’s voice whispering in my ear. I saw his face on the dark shape by my hospital bed. Asking me if I suffered. Telling me it would be over soon. I listened to it echo a thousand times in my head, and still I didn’t know which he was referring to. Was he easing my life or my death?

  And as I drove, I felt random pulls. Faintly left. Faintly right. Behind. Ahead. I couldn’t escape it. Death was everywhere. It was creeping around the outskirts of my world, like it was searching for me. Like it knew I had escaped and was trying to reclaim me.

  So when I felt something stronger, I followed it. I pulled off the narrow curvy road surrounding my town and coasted down into a valley, riding the brakes. The trees parted and the forest flattened into pavement and concrete. A grid of homes and storefronts stretched in front of me for several blocks until the trees crowded back in again.

  I cruised through the blocks until I found it, a ranch home the color of melted butter. A wide porch circled the front of the house, and two white rocking chairs swayed with the breeze. Or the ghosts. I put the car in park and watched.

  Someone in that house was sick. Someone in that house was going to die. It was strong, but my hands were still. My brain was as normal as it was going to get. But death had settled in. Someone moved the white lace curtains aside. A narrow face peered out at me, hovering behind the window. Her white nightgown matched the curtains, so her face looked like it was floating behind the glass.

  She was washed out and hollow, nearly a ghost already. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and groaned. Troy had a point—it was too late for her. She was ancient, halfway to death. How could I possibly save her? The face behind the window kept watching. Like she knew that I was death personified. A warning. A useless, terrible warning. I shook my head, shifted into drive, put my foot on the gas, and left.

  I almost didn’t stop at my house. Troy’s old car was at the curb. I wanted to drive right on past, but Mom was at the window and she’d already seen me. From the road, she looked washed out and hollow as well. When had she become like this? I couldn’t remember. Falcon Lake claimed me nearly a month earlier. Maybe it had claimed her, too.

  I parked in the driveway and walked up the front steps to let myself in the house. Mom was alone in the living room, but I knew he was nearby.

  “Where is he?” I said as I scanned the room for Troy.

  “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?” she asked. “How could you do that? Just leave without telling me.”

  “What?” I flashed back to the morning—it seemed so long ago. “You were busy.”

  “I was busy? Too busy for you to ask permission? Really, Delaney, who are you?”

  A cut. That’s what I felt. Words can cut, slice, like a razor. The old Delaney would’ve asked permission. The old Delaney with the normal brain scan. I was someone else.

  Then I heard the scrape of metal on concrete.

  I walked through the kitchen, through the laundry room, and swung open the back door. The windows shook as the door slammed into the outside wall. Mom followed quickly behind. “What are you doing here?” I asked as Troy tossed a shovelful of snow into the yard. He jammed the shovel back into the ground, scraping against the concrete hidden beneath the snow.

  “He’s helping,” Mom said, sounding farther away than she was. I couldn’t take my eyes off Troy. He stopped hurling snow and rested on the shovel, his chest heaving from exertion. I could tell by the force of the shoveling, the dullness of his eyes, the set of his mouth. He wasn’t helping. He was furious. He was taking out his rage on our sidewalk.

  Mom said, “You didn’t even have the courtesy to be on time for your own date.”

  “We can still make the movie,” Troy said, glaring at me, but trying hard not to glare.

  I looked between Troy and my mother. Troy, barely controlling his anger. My mother, not eve
n bothering to try.

  “Delaney,” Troy said, taking me by the arm. “Let’s go.” He dragged me through the house, and I let him, because I wasn’t sure who I was most scared of at the moment. The stranger I was learning about too quickly, or the woman I’d known my entire life who was quickly becoming a stranger.

  Troy started driving in the wrong direction. “Where are you going?”

  “My place.”

  “No, you’re not. The only place I’m going with you is the movie theater.”

  Troy glanced at me from the corner of his eye and smiled. “I underestimated you,” he said.

  “I overestimated you.”

  “That’s not fair.” But he swung the car around, drove to town, and parked in the back lot of the theater. I was out the door before he turned off the ignition. There was no way I was getting stuck out here with him alone, even in daylight. Because I’d seen the way he looked at me as he tore at the sidewalk with the shovel. And I’d seen the mark he left on my upper arm without even really trying. The scar from fourteen unexplained stitches was warning enough.

  Troy bought our tickets, like it was an actual date. He tucked an arm through mine and pulled me past the concession stand, into our movie, to the black corner in the back row. Even though there were other couples scattered throughout the theater, we were very much alone. Nobody knew we were there, but I felt calm because at least everyone would hear me scream.

  That’s what I thought anyway until the movie started and I realized we were seeing the latest blockbuster with nonstop explosions and gunfire and very little plot. I was wedged in the corner, in the seat against the wall. Troy leaned into me and spoke directly into my ear. It was the only way I could hear him over the movie. “You ran out on me before I could explain.”

  I brought my mouth to his ear and hated that my face touched his when I spoke. “You lied to me from the beginning,” I said. “The reason you work there.”

  “I didn’t lie. I hate seeing people suffer.”

  “So what were you doing with the pills?”

  “I gave her the pain medicine. The other pills, they’re just prolonging the suffering. Forcing her to live longer than she wants to.”

  “You’re killing her!”

  “She’s going to die anyway. Least I can do is make it quick.” His lips brushed my ear and I jerked back.

  “That’s not your choice to make.”

  “No, it’s not a choice at all. It’s my obligation. It’s my purpose.”

  I pulled away and looked at him like I couldn’t tell whether he was serious or making some sick joke.

  He gripped one of my shoulders and pulled me close again. “You don’t get to judge me. You weren’t in the car with me and my family. My parents, they died instantly. That side of the car was crushed. But my sister, she was behind me. You know how long it took for her to die? Three days. Three goddamn days. She begged me to help her. She was broken and bleeding and delirious. She wasn’t begging for me to save her life. She was begging for me to put her out of her misery.”

  He looked at the movie screen and pretended to watch. His face lit up in shades of orange and red from the fire on the screen. He kept talking, and I had to lean forward to hear him. “But I couldn’t. I was stuck. And that night she stopped talking. I don’t remember anything after that. But I woke up in the hospital with no one at my bedside. I wasn’t allowed to die. I couldn’t even end her suffering.”

  “Then why not just tell them? Tell them they’re dying? Let them make that choice for themselves?”

  “They don’t have the guts to do it themselves. They want to, but they can’t.”

  “No. You’re wrong. I’d want to live. I’d want to try.”

  “Even if you’re suffering? Not me. I’d want to make it quick.”

  My brain spun so I stared at the explosions on the screen, trying to orient myself. But I got that feeling again, like vertigo. I closed my eyes, but it wasn’t any better. I felt like I was falling.

  “My neighbor. The open windows. That was you. My parents thought it was me.” I wasn’t speaking into his ear anymore, so I didn’t know if he was ignoring me or if he hadn’t heard me.

  “And the fire. Are you out of your freaking mind? How is that not suffering?” I looked at the mark on my hand, still visible.

  Troy lurched over my seat and hissed into my ear. “He took a tranquilizer. He was out. I swear it. He didn’t feel a thing. I promise you.”

  “Troy, when you came for me, you should know—I wanted to live. I wanted to live!” I remembered the feeling when I woke. The screaming. “You made me suffer.”

  He flinched. “You don’t understand. They shouldn’t have kept you alive. You should’ve seen yourself, machines breathing for you, feeding you, numbing you. If they would’ve just left you alone, you wouldn’t have suffered. And I tried. I came to help you every day. And when your parents and the nurses and the ten thousand doctors who thought they were helping finally left, I still couldn’t get to you because of that goddamn boy.”

  “Decker?”

  “Whoever. He was so sad and pathetic. Just sitting there waiting for you to wake up. Watching you suffer. Letting them keep you like that. If he cared about you at all, he would’ve let you die.”

  “I wanted to live,” I said again, but lower this time.

  “You didn’t know what you wanted.”

  “But I did live. So you can’t know. It’s not final. It’s not one hundred percent. There’s always a chance.”

  He looked at me. “You think you’re alive?”

  I dug my nails into my palm, just to make sure. “I’m not dead.”

  “Doesn’t mean you’re alive.”

  I stood up abruptly and stepped over Troy. “Don’t come near me ever again.”

  He gripped my arm, the one with the bruise, and I winced. “Don’t be stupid, Delaney.” Then he stood up and walked with me to the exit.

  The lobby was empty except for the kid at the concession stand, staring mindlessly at the popping popcorn. “I’ll tell. I swear it. I’ll tell about me, and I’ll tell about you. I’ll tell them what you’ve done.”

  “What have I done? Tell me, exactly. Please, I’m dying to hear this. I knew your neighbor was sick, so I opened her windows? For real?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You think your parents will believe you?”

  “But the fire, there were witnesses. Someone must’ve seen you.”

  He smiled at me, but all I could focus on was the chip in his tooth, the darkness behind it. “Who do you think they noticed?” he said. “Me, dressed in black, or you, in a bright red jacket?” He paused to let me think about that. “And what do you think the evidence will say? Did you touch anything? I wore gloves. Hmm, I wonder if there’s anything tying you to the scene of the crime.” He pressed down on my palm and I cried out. The bored teenager glanced up momentarily, then went back to watching the popcorn. “What, exactly, do you think they’ll do to you, Delaney?”

  Images flashed in my mind. Pills. My arms tied to the bed. The hospital. Or worse. I pushed through the double doors and squinted from the glare of the sun off the snow. Troy moved his hand from my arm to shade his eyes. And in that one instant, I ran.

  I ran across the street just as a truck lumbered behind me. I turned to look back at the movie theater, and Troy stood there with his arms casually at his sides, eyes narrowed at me. He stepped nonchalantly into the road and started toward me. I ran to the end of the block, past the pizza place, in the direction of home. Six blocks. Six snow-covered blocks to the edge of the lake, a left, and one block back from the water. I’d never make it. If Troy wanted to catch me, he would. I turned back to the pizzeria, but Troy was already there, standing directly under the green overhang above the front door.

  I cut through the parking lot, slipping on ice, steadying myself on the hoods of cars, and snuck behind the strip of stores. My hands fumbled across the exposed bricks of the outer wall, and I leaned into them as I ran, trying not
to slip. I squeezed between the wall and two Dumpsters, scraping my back along the bricks as I did. I didn’t think it’d be that tight a squeeze. I thought of staying there since Troy was thicker and wouldn’t fit, but really, how pathetic could I get—hiding behind a Dumpster indefinitely? So I squeezed out the other side and pulled on the back entrance to the pizzeria.

  It was locked. By now, I heard Troy somewhere in the back alley. More than that, I felt him. I felt the rage coming off him, and the confidence. I started moving again. Back entrance of the shoe store: locked. Back entrance of the bank: locked, obviously. In front of me, the alley ended at a high wooden fence. Chain-linked metal extended along the back of the lot, enclosing the backyards of the small row homes on the next block.

  “Delaney!” I couldn’t see Troy, not with the Dumpsters behind every door, but his voice told me he was close. I pulled on the last door, and miraculously, gracefully, compassionately, it swung open. My relief was short-lived because I found myself in a small mud room with another, thicker door in front of me. Locked. So I spun around and turned the deadbolt on the outside door and slumped to the floor.

  There was no heat here. No carpeting, either. And nobody had cleaned the floor in ages. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember what store was past the bank. I knew there was a green overhang marking it, like all the other storefronts. I knew there was a front door made of glass, like the rest. I just didn’t remember any words. I watched the light flicker under the outside door.

  If I was a hero I’d storm out and face him down, knee him in the groin, watch him collapse, add a sarcastic jab as I walked away. But here’s the truth. I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t fast. Out in the open, I was the prey. But I was smart. Smart enough to run. Smart enough to hide. Smart enough to stay hidden.

  Heavy boots crunched the snow outside. The doorknob jiggled and the wooden frame creaked from the strain of weight on the other side. It creaked, but it held. “You in there, Delaney? We’re not finished talking about this.”