“Then tell me what it is!” I remembered her telling me about this before, when her mom found her clawing at her wrists and sent her to a shrink afterward. But I needed to know more. I needed to know everything and she was going to tell me or we’d sit here like this forever.
She started to twist her body in a way that if I didn’t let go her arms would break, so I released her.
“Just go. Go home, Elias. Please just go home.” Her voice was strangely soft and distant, it felt like every part of her had given up.
She buried her head on her knees again, wrapping her arms around her legs.
“No, I’m not leaving this room until you tell me what that is.”
Her head shot back up. “If I tell you, will you go home?”
“No.”
“Then forget it. I’m leaving here, Elias. Not with Tate or with anyone else. I’m leaving here on my own.” Her voice was firm, resolute.
“What are you talking about?”
She was scaring me. Her wrists. This burst of despair and pain that came out of nowhere and blindsided me. This crazy shit she was saying about leaving without me. She shook her head back and forth over and over again, looking at anything but me. And it was infuriating. I rose from the floor and into a crouched position, pushing up with my knuckles pressing against the linoleum. She still wouldn’t look at me and I had given up expecting her to. Was she serious? Did she really want me to leave? What was she planning to do?
My heart sank. I knew I couldn’t leave her. I wouldn’t have, anyway, but I knew that even if I had wanted to I couldn’t.
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” she said in a soft voice. “I was… I just do that sometimes.”
“Do what?” I couldn’t for the life of me understand what the hell she was saying to me.
“I’ve done it since I was a teenager,” she said. “It’s no big deal. It’s just a release. I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I told you I’m stronger than that.” She finally looked up at me and her face was full of darkness and finality. She was tired of who she was, tired of hiding, from me, from herself, tired of pretending to be someone she wasn’t, because she knew she wasn’t what society deemed normal. I felt it as I looked down into her eyes.
She was tired.
“I’d say that clawing at your wrists with your fingernails is a pretty big fucking deal, Bray.”
“To you, I guess it would be.” She was eerily calm and her tears had already begun to dry up. She sniffled back the few remaining.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
She hesitated and looked at the pedestal sink next to her. “You would never understand.”
“Try me.”
“They always say that.”
“I’m not ‘they,’ ” I said. “I’m the one person in this world you know loves you more than anything. Never throw me in the closet with them. I don’t belong there. I never will.”
Her throat moved as though she were swallowing more tears that were trying to rise to the surface.
Finally she said, “Sometimes the darkness feels like it’s right there beneath the skin. It’s right there. I hate it when I can feel it, because it’s like it’s taunting me. It knows I can’t get to it. I scratch and claw”—her voice began to shake, her eyes were brimming with tears again, tears of anger—“and I try to get it out but I can’t. I can’t because I know I’d hurt myself if I went that far! But I try so hard!”
I sat down in front of her again and took her gently by her forearms, my thumbs pressing in the center of the soft underskin. “Tell me. I want to know everything. How it feels. What makes it go away. How often it comes back. I need to know, baby.”
She choked the tears back and sniffled. “It doesn’t happen very often anymore, not like when I was a teenager,” she said. “And it eventually goes away after I’ve cried it out.” She laughed drily. “Well, I always try clawing it out, but it never works. It always comes back. And whenever it comes back, I always go for the wrists first.”
She looked me in the eyes. “Elias, I wasn’t trying to hurt myself. I just wanted it out.”
I believed her. I couldn’t understand exactly how she felt, but in a way I could. I couldn’t imagine living like that. I tried to picture myself in her place, going through the motions all her life, and it only made me squirm inside my skin. I thought she was much stronger than I could ever be for dealing with something so dark, so strange, practically all her life. I knew I could never have done it.
“Elias, I want you to go home.” Her tone was calm, but abandon lay evident in her eyes.
I was an idiot to think she had forgotten about that part. I shook my head. “You know I won’t do that.”
“Look, this isn’t some cry for attention,” she said as she speared all ten fingers through the top of her hair, pulling the hair away from her tear-streaked face. “This isn’t me telling you to go home because I need to hear you say that you won’t. I really mean it, Elias. You need to go home. This isn’t your problem and I’m tired of making it yours.”
“It is my problem,” I said. “Whatever you go through I go through with you. I always will.”
The palms of her hands slapped against the floor on each side of her. “Dammit, Elias! Stop doing this! You deserve better than what I could ever give you, and I’m never going to be able to change. Ever. Stop being my safety net and just go. I want you to.”
“I don’t care if that’s what you want,” I said. “I’m not leaving you. I’m with you to the end, whether you want me there or not.”
She gritted her teeth and inhaled a deep, infuriated breath. She was telling the truth about really wanting me to leave. It was exactly as she had said, that this wasn’t about needing to hear me say I that I wouldn’t. She was determined to make me leave her behind and angry that I refused. But I didn’t care.
“Three more days,” I said. “You agreed to give me that much. I expect you to hold to it.”
“So you’re just going to walk around going absolutely nowhere with me? Everybody here knows about us now. It’s only a matter of a very short time before one of them calls the cops and we’re hauled off to jail.” Her steely gaze shot through me when she said, “And I’m not going to jail. Do you understand? I won’t go to jail.”
The way she said it, the way her eyes held every ounce of resolve that I knew could never be shaken, tore a hole in my soul. Bray had revealed to me the darkness that lived within her, the darkness that made all the reckless decisions and that always controlled her when she was at her weakest, that which I feared would later send her right into the throes of death. My Bray was no longer the one sitting on that bathroom floor. That brave, strong, fearless girl who loved to laugh and play in the rain. The darkness that lived underneath her skin, that she fought so hard to be free of, was in control of her now, triggered by how close we were getting to the end of all this, triggered by the events that she knew would inevitably be set into motion. I won’t go to jail. Her words ran through my mind over and over again, and I knew that she’d die before she let that happen.
Bray would die before she let that happen.
“You promised me three days.”
She looked right at me. Her tears had completely dried up.
“Then three days it is,” she said, nodding. “We have three days left together. I want to make the most of them.”
Her words rendered me speechless. My heart, which only beat for her anymore, took my voice and my mind when it fell into the pit of my stomach.
We had only three days left together, and I knew that they would end either in separation or in death.
And I could never prepare myself for either.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Elias
Tate and Jen said their good-byes at the airport. By this time, she was so worried about Tate’s safety that she only glared at me and Bray with accusing eyes. She was adamant about Tate calling her every chance he got to let her know that he was OK. But h
er fears didn’t lie only with us. She was equally worried about what could happen to Tate when he got to Corpus Christi. In her eyes, Caleb was no better.
Jen was a great girl. She and Tate were perfect for one another, I believed. And the more difficult my and Bray’s relationship became, the more I envied the two of them. I wanted nothing more than for Bray and me to be like they were. Free. If Bray wanted to beat the shit out of me, I would’ve welcomed it. I would’ve welcomed anything over what we had and what we were now going through.
We hit the road just after one o’clock in the afternoon and were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by seven o’clock. We pulled into a small motel when one of Tate’s tires blew out. It was so loud it sounded like a gunshot.
“You change the tire,” Tate told Caleb, “and I’ll call Rocky.”
“Why are you calling him?” Caleb asked.
“Because obviously we’re not going to make it there when I told him we would.”
Caleb went around to the back of the Jeep and took the spare tire down from the mount.
Tate rented two rooms first and handed me a key when he came out of the front office.
“I’ll put it on your tab,” he said with a smirk.
“How long is that tab, anyway?” I asked in jest. “At least eight hundred bucks, I’m sure.”
“Shit, man, I’m charging you interest,” he said, grinning. “We’ll get it all squared away when this is over with.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, and he disappeared inside the door two rooms down from where the Jeep was parked.
All of the rooms opened to the outside rather than inside onto a maze of hallways. I looked at our room key, which was an actual key—that’s how old the motel was—instead of a card. Our room was right next to Tate and Caleb’s. Bray finally got out of the Jeep after Caleb asked her to so he could jack it up.
“I’m going to get a shower,” I called out to Bray. “Want to come?”
A faint smile appeared around her eyes, and she crossed her arms as if there was a chill in the air, even though it was a sticky, humid night.
“I’ll take one after you,” she said.
I knew what she was doing. She was trying to distance herself from me. To prepare me. And while I didn’t exactly think that was the way to go about making the most of the three days we had left together, I couldn’t bring myself to argue with her about it.
I slipped inside the room and left her outside with Caleb while he changed the tire.
Bray
I hadn’t told Elias yet about me overhearing his conversation with Tate on the back porch at Adam’s house. The conversation about Caleb and his rape sentence. The office room Elias and I had stayed in was right next to the back porch. I’d listened to them from the window. I had also heard their conversation about me, Tate telling Elias that he should talk me into turning myself in. Tate was right in all of the advice he gave Elias, but I felt beyond redemption. There was no hope left for me. I hated it that I was dragging the one person in the world I loved more than any other through the mud with me. But he wasn’t going to leave me alone. No matter what I did or said to him, Elias would never leave me to my fate. I both loved and resented him for it. I resented him only because it hurt that much more, knowing that I was ruining him.
I sat down on the faded yellow concrete parking chock in the empty spot next to the Jeep. Caleb was pumping the metal lever on the tire jack, raising the Jeep off the asphalt.
“Mind if I ask you something?”
Caleb glanced over at me briefly.
“If I said no, would you still ask?”
“Probably,” I said.
I caught his eyes rolling as he looked back at the jack.
“What is jail like?”
Caleb stopped pumping the jack for a second, but he didn’t look at me. When he went back to work he answered, “Jail or prison? Jail is pretty manageable. Prison is a whole ’nother nightmare. Why do you ask?” He glanced back at me with a gleam in his eye. “Worried about what they’re going to do to you in there?”
My heart skipped a beat. He enjoyed asking me that. I didn’t let it get to me.
“Yes,” I answered honestly. I still had no plans on going to jail or prison, but I wanted to know what it was like just the same.
Caleb pumped the jack lever one final time and stood upright, wiping light sweat from his forehead with the top of his forearm.
“No idea what it’s like in women’s prison,” he said. “But I imagine it’s not too much different. The short time I spent locked up, it really wasn’t that different from what you see on TV. Not as harsh where I was. No one raped me in the ass or made me their bitch, but if I had shown even a fraction of fear they might’ve tried. Guess I have Tate and Kyle to thank for that.” He laughed lightly. “They beat the shit out of me growing up. I had a lot of practice. But yeah, I did get into fights, and I did get my ass beat once, but I had friends on the inside. They looked after me while I was in there, and I look after them while I’m out here.”
My expression shifted from interest to confusion, but he wouldn’t elaborate. I knew whatever he’d been doing for his “friends” on the inside must’ve been illegal.
“Did you kill that girl?” He looked right into my eyes.
“Not on purpose,” I said.
He nodded and then reached in the back of the Jeep and pulled out a tire iron. Bending over in front of the blown tire he attached one end to a lug nut. “Then you should’ve just went to the police,” he said, spinning the tire iron once. “You really fucked up by running.”
“I know,” I sighed. “But there’s nothing I can do about that now.”
I gazed contemplatively out at the falling darkness, the way the grayish-blue light fell over the parking lot. The horizon was pink and orange as the last of the sun fell behind the clouds. I thought about how blunt Caleb had been just now, how right he was.
“Did Cera ever see you while you were in prison?”
Caleb stood upright, still clasping the tire iron in his dirty, blackened hand. I knew I would strike a nerve bringing up her name, but I didn’t care much.
“You’re overstepping your bounds,” he warned.
“Did she?” I pressed.
He glared at me.
“It’s obvious you still love that girl,” I said, further angering him. “And I don’t think you’re a bad guy. An asshole at times, and a womanizing pig, but you’re clearly not a bad guy. You just happened to end up with the shit end of the stick. I just want to know if she loved you as much as you loved her.”
A deep sigh escaped Caleb’s lungs. His head dropped for a moment as if he were quietly arguing with himself for giving in to me at all.
Then he sat down beside me on the yellow chock. The tire iron clattered softly against the asphalt as he put it down next to his low black Nike shoes. He rested his arms atop his bent knees. Absently, I studied the tattoo of the Asian girl on his left arm. We looked out at the colorful, darkening horizon.
“No,” he said. “Cera never came to visit me. Not even once. I was convicted of raping someone, and she believed everyone else over me. But I didn’t blame her. I still don’t.”
I looked at him, but he didn’t look back. “I guess it would be hard to put your faith in someone who was accused of rape,” I said. “But… I think if she truly loved you then she would’ve known that you were innocent. She would’ve been able to feel it.”
“Cera did love me,” he said with a hint of acid in his voice. “You don’t spend five years of your life with someone, happy every morning when you wake up next to him, a smile in your voice every time you talk to him on the phone, if you didn’t love him.”
I nodded. I couldn’t argue with that.
Then he said, “Elias loves you. A little pussy-whipped, I think, but it’s still love.”
I was surprised by the sincerity in his face.
He grabbed the tire iron and stood back up. “Yes, I think Elias will visit you when you
go to prison,” he said, and it sobered me in the darkest of ways. “That is what you want to know, isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer, but I didn’t really have to.
He started loosening another lug nut.
“And if he doesn’t,” he went on, “it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you, just like Cera. It just means he’s confused and a little scared. That’s all it is.”
Caleb was lying to himself, and he knew it. He turned the tire iron harder, the muscles in his arms hardening with each push. I saw the side of his temple where a vein was beginning to bulge, and the way his jaw clenched tightly as he ground his teeth. He knew deep down that Cera may not have loved him as much as he thought she did, but he struggled with not allowing himself to believe it every single day of his life.
“Don’t you have something better to do?” he asked as he dismounted the bad tire and dropped it on its side. “Go shower with your fiancé. Watch TV, hell, I don’t care much, just anything but hanging around out here with me.” He looked at me from a bent-over position in front of where the tire used to be and then grinned. “Unless you want to be Grace’s replacement? I have no fucking problem putting your little ass up on that hood and licking your pussy until the sun comes up.”
My eyes popped wide open. I swallowed hard. I stood up and dusted off the back of my shorts.
Normally, I would be offended by that, but Caleb was harmless, and I knew that sex and his extreme personality was his way of coping with the way his life turned out. I mean, sure, it wasn’t that Caleb wouldn’t do something like that even with Elias just feet away, but he was still harmless. I just shook my head and rolled my eyes at him.
He smiled and nodded toward the room where Elias was and said, “Get outta here.”
I smiled back and walked away.
Elias was still in the shower when I walked into the room, glad he thought to leave the outside door cracked so it wouldn’t lock me out.
I sat down on the bed and looked at the cigarette-stained phone on the nightstand.
Song of the Fireflies Page 20