by Carrie Arcos
“How were you going to change things?”
Tyler shrugged. “I don’t know. Through music, art, whatever.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“Last year Micah started becoming distant and paranoid. I knew it was the drugs. I called him on it. It’s one thing to have a joint every now and then, but he was going way overkill. I mean he was using every week, sometimes a couple times a week. He’d come back high to class. Or he’d skip class altogether. Normally I don’t have a problem with the occasional skippage, but Micah was cutting all the time. When I’d try talking to him, he’d tell me he didn’t need another person on his case. He had it handled.”
The line moved forward. We’d be in the next car.
“But I’d get these phone calls from him in the middle of the night. Sometimes I’d answer, but most of the time he left these crazy messages about how people were after him and his music, like the government or something. I mean, it was strange shit. He started doubting the band and questioning everything. He accused me of trying to take the band from him, like I wanted all the glory.
“One of the last practices he came to, he showed up late and high. We were jamming a little, just fooling around while we waited for him. He came in, screaming, and tried to hit me. I had to pin him down on the floor. Asshole, gave me a bloody lip.” Tyler’s hands went to his mouth as if it were still swollen.
“Sometimes I’d catch him sitting with his guitar and just staring. He wasn’t strumming or anything, just staring. It was like he was gone. Like he wasn’t Micah anymore.”
“Micah hasn’t been Micah for a long time,” I said. I knew the look Tyler described. It was the look Micah had in the picture I carried in my pocket: dead.
“I tried talking to your dad once, but I don’t think it came out right.”
“What do you mean?” Tyler’s talk had really woken my parents up to how bad things were.
“Let’s just say your dad was in the ‘looking to blame’ phase.”
“They don’t blame you. They were hurt and angry. They got Micah into a program after your talk, not that the rehab helped.”
“Most people need to go to rehab a couple of times before it really sticks. It took my dad three times.”
I didn’t know Tyler’s dad had been in rehab. Micah had never said anything, and before today Tyler and I never had any significant conversation besides how the band sounded at a show or what movies we had seen lately. I waited for him to continue. It was clear a lot of pain lay behind his words.
“He used to be a drunk. He did the whole routine, binging on the weekends, yelling at my mom and me. He checked himself into a rehab program the day after he broke her favorite chair.”
“How old were you?”
“The first time? Eight or so. It didn’t really click for my dad until a couple of years ago when my mom threatened to leave him. I remember she had packed a suitcase for me. He’s been sober going on three years now.”
“Did Micah know?”
“Yeah, he’s the only one I told.”
Micah really listened and he was good at keeping secrets. He had had plenty of practice with me.
“Is that why you don’t drink at parties?” Tyler was always the designated driver when he went out with Micah.
“Bingo.” He motioned me forward and put his hands on my shoulders to guide me. “Our turn.” I chose the middle of the coaster. I figured that would be the safest place.
“Have you ever been on the Big Dipper?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Me neither. Here’s to firsts.” We high-fived each other.
The roller coaster took its time crawling up the first incline. I couldn’t hear anything except the clicking and creaking of the old wooden track. At the top, there was a fantastic view of Mission Beach, but only for a moment before we dropped. I screamed. It felt so good to release all the day’s tension. We sped up and down hills. There were no loops, but it was still fun. When we slid to a stop at the end of the ride, I tripped getting out of the seat and started laughing so hard that I had to bend over and catch my breath.
Tyler looked at me, and I said, “Bumper cars!” I took off running toward the sign. Tyler beat me to the entrance.
Tyler pretty much annihilated me in bumper cars. I blamed the little kids who wouldn’t get out of my way, even though he somehow maneuvered around them with no problem. He kept slamming into the back of me. Maybe I really was a bad driver.
Afterward, I dragged Tyler into a henna shop. All kinds of designs covered the walls and the ceiling, but I already knew what I wanted. I pointed to a small butterfly. Girly and typical, I knew, but I loved butterflies.
I sat in a chair while a woman painted a blue and black butterfly on my outer left ankle. It only tickled; there would be no pain like a real tattoo. Tyler leaned against the wall and watched, but only for a few minutes. He cleared his throat and walked outside.
In AP bio, we watched a documentary that showed how a caterpillar became completely liquidated within the cocoon in order to reform into a butterfly. The caterpillar dissolved in slow motion, acid eating away at it, like it was stuck in some predator’s stomach. The crazy part of it was that caterpillars did this over and over, made their cocoons, and transformed to become what they were born to be.
“What do you think?” I asked Tyler when I joined him later. I twisted my leg so he could see the henna.
“It’s nice,” he said. “You should get a real one. I’ll warn you, though, it’s addicting.”
“That would be so permanent. What if I changed my mind? If I’m lucky, this’ll last up to four weeks.” I caught a peek of the bottom of Tyler’s tattoo on his arm. I reached out and rolled up his sleeve to get a better look. The eagle spanned the whole of his upper bicep. Black ink outlined the traditional Aztec drawing. It was clean, without color.
“Why did you choose this one?” I touched the top of the eagle and felt his muscle twitch.
“It’s a symbol of courage and strength. The Aztec warriors used to paint it on themselves before they went to battle.” He smiled ruefully. “Not much to do when you’re stuck in Mexico for the summer. It also really pissed off my mom, which was another benefit.”
I thought of the men painting this onto each other before battle, how Tyler and Micah could have been one of them. Tyler began flexing his muscle and the bird sort of danced. I laughed.
I hesitated, then said, “Can I ask you a question without you getting mad?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you smoke pot? I mean, with your family’s history. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea.”
“I used to smoke a lot, freshman year. If you want to get all shrink-like, maybe I’d say it was my coping mechanism. It helped take the edge off. I was really pissed all the time. Instead of dealing with it, I smoked. But then my dad started getting better, started dealing with his shit. He had these steps he had to do. One of the things he had to do was ask me to forgive him for everything he had put me through. He sat there across from me at the kitchen table and cried. I’d never seen him cry before. And I thought, he really means it. In that moment, I didn’t want to hate him anymore. I wanted to believe him. Sometimes that’s all it takes. So I forgave him. He stood up and hugged me, not one of our usual pats on the back, more like one of those bear hugs. He kept crying and thanking me for giving him another chance.”
My eyes started to moisten as I pictured Tyler and his dad. I couldn’t help but think about Micah and hope that one day that could be us. If Tyler noticed, he didn’t say anything.
“Thanks for telling me. You never really know a person’s story. Where they’re at.”
“I didn’t want you to think that I was some stoner or something.”
I gave him a sideways glance.
“I’m not saying I’m a saint or anything,” he continued. “I really only smoke cigarettes now when I’m nervous or stressed out.”
“You must be pretty stressed today.”
<
br /> Tyler smiled and his eyes had specks of gold with the green.
I broke his stare and turned my attention to the man selling peanuts and cotton candy. I wasn’t ready for what Tyler’s eyes said to me. We were here on a mission. I didn’t want to get caught up in some side romance. Besides, this was Tyler. Micah’s friend Tyler. If anything did happen, it could be complicated and messy. I didn’t need complicated and messy in my life at the moment.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a quick flash of a guitar case. Brown shaggy hair. Skinny jeans and a black T-shirt. I snapped my head, but the guy had already been sucked into the crowd. I started moving toward the last place I had seen him.
“Rachel? Wait! What’s going on?” Tyler called after me, but I didn’t stop.
I pushed my way through the throngs of people.
“Micah!” I yelled.
Up ahead I could see the guitar case rounding a corner. I hurried, but when I reached the corner, he was gone. I grabbed a woman walking toward me.
“Did you see a guy with a guitar?”
She shook her head. I asked another person and another. No one had seen the guy with the guitar case. Maybe I had imagined him. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe.
Up ahead I saw the boardwalk, and I knew he’d be there. I ran again, looking all around. I heard him. I turned toward the sound of the guitar, anticipating the voice. He sat on the wall of the boardwalk, strumming. He opened his mouth and sang, and it was so beautiful that I began to cry.
“Rachel?” Tyler asked, coming up beside me.
I turned into him, and he held me as we listened to some boy I didn’t know who sat on the wall. And I was sad because Micah’s voice had never been that beautiful.
Chapter Eighteen
One night, not long after Micah had left, I couldn’t sleep. Each time I turned to face the clock, only five small minutes had passed. It was 1:35 in the morning. Tired of staring at the ceiling, I decided maybe food would help.
As I walked down the stairs, a light was coming from the kitchen. My parents usually left one on to scare burglars away, but as I rounded the corner, I was surprised to find my mother sitting at the kitchen table. Her hair, normally neat, was pulled back into a messy ponytail, revealing the gray. She wore the same clothes she had worn to work; they were now tired and wrinkled.
She had photo albums scattered across the table in front of her. She rested the side of her head in one of her hands as she flipped through an album.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, not wanting to startle her.
“Rachel?” She looked up at me, confused, as if she wasn’t sure exactly where she was.
“Yes.” I removed a bowl from the second shelf of the cupboard.
“It’s late?” She said it like a question.
“Yeah,” I answered her. “It’s after one.”
“Oh?” She turned back to what she was looking at, a page opened to our Grand Canyon vacation from when I was in elementary school.
I had begged my parents to go to the Grand Canyon after reading an old book of my mom’s, Brighty of the Grand Canyon, about an orphaned donkey who navigates the canyon and the people he meets along the way. When we actually got to the canyon, I was disappointed because all we did was stand on top of a cliff and look out below. My dad was afraid of heights, so he didn’t want us going anywhere near the edge. He wouldn’t even let us take a donkey down the trail or hike into the canyon on foot.
In the album, our family stood with our backs against the protective railing and smiled, everyone except my dad. He looked nervously over his shoulder, so only the side of his face showed.
I opened another cupboard and found some granola. “You hungry, Mom?”
“No.” She flipped through the pages, lingering every so often on certain photographs. Her free hand touched face after face on the page. I leaned against the counter, eating my cereal and watching her. I figured out the pattern pretty quickly. She stopped at all the photos of Micah.
I joined her at the table and opened another album. It was from when I was a baby, probably around one year old, so Micah was two or so. On the first page, my mom held me out toward the camera, my two chunky legs sticking out from under my white sundress. I looked like I was squealing with delight. Micah stood beside her, his face buried into her leg. My mom wore her hair in two long pigtails. She looked so young. So carefree.
“Rachel?” My mom said my name like she’d just noticed I was sitting next to her. “What are you doing up? It’s so late.”
“I couldn’t sleep. And I saw the light on . . .” I let my voice trail off, figuring that would be enough of an explanation. Words had become quite sparse and unnecessary between us since Micah left. It was like part of her had left too.
She looked up from a picture of twelve-year-old Micah standing next to his surfboard. I remembered taking that one. “You have always been the good one, haven’t you?” She reached out and laid her hand on mine. “My good girl.” She turned back to the photograph of Micah. “He was still good here, don’t you think?”
She paused. “I keep searching through these pages, wondering, where did we lose him? All I see is my baby’s face. All I see is Micah.”
I wanted to tell her everything, confess all that I knew about Micah. I wanted to tell her about how he’d started using a long time ago and how I had never said anything to her. I wanted to tell her about Keith. I wanted to tell her about all the times I had wished Micah would just go away, how I even prayed it because I hated him and because I hated that he was no longer the brother I knew. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t always good.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she said, “Look, I know it’s not fair for you to have to deal with this. I appreciate how strong you’ve been.”
My eyes began to water. She patted my hand. “Shh. I know how worried you must be about Micah. We all are. Your father . . .” Her voice faltered. “We’ve got to think the best. He’s going to be all right. You’ll see. Everything will be fine.”
I pulled my hand from under hers. “Yeah, he’ll be fine.” I ignored the words I wanted to say, like I’m still here and I need you too, and said instead, “He is going to come back any day now.”
My mom turned her attention to the old photographs, back to the memory of a Micah already long gone.
“Any day now,” she repeated.
I took another bite of the granola to help swallow the lie.
Chapter Nineteen
Tyler and I found Dillon’s car in the parking lot next to a small stretch of grass. He sat in the backseat with his cowboy hat pulled down to cover his face. His arms hugged his chest. He looked so peaceful. I was amazed he could sleep with all the people passing by.
“Aw, look, honey, he’s sleeping,” Tyler said loudly next to the car.
Dillon stirred, tipped up his hat, and squinted at us. “Are you done with your little lovers’ spat?”
I blushed. “I’m all right, thank you. Where’s your board?”
“I dropped it off at home. I didn’t want someone to steal it out here. Cost me a hundred bucks just to get it fixed, but that’s okay because Reeves and Spencer saved her life.” He climbed over the seat and slid behind the wheel.
“Couldn’t you have gotten a new one?” I asked.
“That board and I have history. You don’t just replace that.”
Tyler opened the passenger door for me to get in.
“So where are we going?”
“I did some investigating of my own, put out a few calls, and I got us an address.”
My heart quickened at the thought of an address. An address meant a location, a home, or at least a place where he had slept.
“Yeah, turns out our Micah was keeping some secrets. He had a sugar momma on the side.”
“A girlfriend?” Tyler asked.
“Yep. Someone named Finn. She’s a tattoo artist at a nearby shop. We’re headed to her place.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Dillon parked along
a street and we walked up an alleyway to Finn’s apartment. Dillon rang the buzzer to the second floor. My hand rested against a wooden post, and I began picking off the old brown paint. I looked at Tyler and he offered me an encouraging smile, though his eyes were guarded. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a little squeeze. The gesture didn’t comfort me, but I nodded and pretended that it did.
Dillon rang the buzzer a second time. The door could open at any minute. Any second now, and I could be standing face-to-face with Micah. What would I say? I should have rehearsed something.
How about, “You fucker!” No, too extreme. Not really me, just how I imagined I would be if I were a character in a movie.
How about, “You selfish jerk!” Better, but he might slam the door in my face. I guess I could simply say, “Hey,” and see where it went from there.
Someone on the other side of the door unlatched locks and deadbolts. The door cracked open and an eye peeked out at us. My heart sank. It was blue. The door opened a little wider and the blue eye was framed by yellow hair. The eye scanned our faces and stopped on mine.
“Finn?” Dillon asked.
She nodded and opened the door. “He’s not here.” She turned away from us and walked up the stairs. Dillon, Tyler, and I exchanged a quizzical look, but I made the decision and followed.
Stepping into Finn’s apartment felt like crossing into a different world. Long trains of red and purple fabric hung from the ceiling and ran down the walls. There were no couches, only large colored throw pillows and beanbags. Candles of all sizes and shapes had melted into every available counter and table.
Finn walked back to the stove. “Tea?” She poured some hot water into a cup.
“Sure,” I said. “Guys?”
They nodded. I had to smile. I wondered if they had ever drunk tea in their life.
“You’re Rachel. You look exactly the way he described you.” She set three filled cups on the bar, which jutted out from the kitchen. She walked around and sank into a green beanbag, crossing her legs in front of her. She wore a black tank top and matching leggings. Half of her blond hair was piled on top of her head; the other half hung loosely past her shoulders. A vine of roses and thorns climbed from her right wrist all the way to her collarbone.