Secret for a Song

by Secret for a Song (epub)

  So polite. She’d caught me out, and she was still being so fucking polite. I brightened my smile a couple of notches. “Sure!”

  I opened the basement door and as we began to climb up, I let myself relax because I knew there was no chance any of the TIDD group would venture out here. There wasn’t any chance that they’d hear my lies or Linda Adams’s truth. “You know how I told you I’ve met some great people in that group?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, one of them came in today and he’s not doing so well. He wanted to invite his friends to a sort of last party for him, and he was insistent that I come, too.” I shrugged. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone in there with their group, but when he invited me...I felt like it was okay to do that. Sorry, Linda. It won’t happen again.” I gave her my most sincere apologetic look.

  We were at the first floor landing. Linda smiled, her face sagging a bit in relief. “That’s okay,” she said. “Believe me, I know what it’s like to become attached. You grow used to it as time goes on, and learn how to distance yourself better. I’m just glad I’m not a doctor or a nurse because I’d be a wreck every time one of my patients passed.”

  We laughed together, enjoying a moment of camaraderie. I saw clearer then than I ever had before what the shrinks had been saying since my first appointment: that Munchausen Syndrome is usually accompanied by a personality disorder of some sort. I’d been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, among other things, but I’d never much paid attention to it. It was just another label they wanted to slap on me, to say that I was damaged goods. Now, for the first time, I looked at what that label meant. Perhaps it meant that I was more willing than the average person to lie, to cheat, to try to cover my hide when I was at risk. Perhaps it meant that I was unworthy of the love and attention I’d been getting from the TIDD group. But it also meant that, even in the face of these revelations, I refused to do anything to rectify it.

  Linda Adams returned to her office and I went outside to wait for Drew.

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Zee’s mom picked her up. Apparently her breathing issues were getting bad enough that her mom was worried she might black out from lack of oxygen while driving. Zee kept playing it off, insisting that her mother was overreacting. After she left, Drew sighed. We were outside, sitting on a bench in the hospital’s courtyard.

  “Feels like everyone just got sicker all the sudden,” he said. “Doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” I took his hand. “But I think our perception’s colored because of you being prescribed the wheelchair. Pierce was diagnosed with the sarcoma before we went to Jack’s party.”

  He leaned over and kissed me in the fading light. “Thanks.”

  “For what?” Guilt churned in my stomach. It was almost a constant feeling now, like a blackened tumor that was growing exponentially, taking up space and weight in my body.

  His eyes had that rim of gold around them they did in this kind of slanted sunlight. He curled his fingers under my jaw, his thumb resting at the corner of my mouth. “For being so extraordinary.”

  I couldn’t look at him. I felt like I was going to cry.

  “Look at me,” he said, tugging gently on my chin.

  I did.

  “You are, you know? Fucking extraordinary.” A breeze blew a strand of his hair across his forehead.

  “I have something to tell you.” The words tumbled out like river rocks, my voice catching on the word “tell.”

  Drew stared into my eyes a moment, and then nodded. “Okay.”

  I shook my head. “Not now. Um, after Pierce’s thing Tuesday. Okay?” In spite of the cold, I was beginning to sweat.

  “Okay,” Drew said again. His eyes probed mine, looking for a hint of what I was hiding. “Hey. Nothing you tell me is going to change how I feel about you.”

  I wished I could believe him, but I knew better.

  Some things, things that were supposed to be universal facts, were actually universal lies. For instance: A mother’s love is unconditional. Turns out it does have conditions after all. For another instance: All human beings strive for good health. Turns out some of us are like photographic negatives; jarring, discordant, wrong.

  I kissed him because I didn’t want to answer.

  “I should go,” he said. “I told the guys at Sphinx I’d go play there tonight.”

  “Okay. Do you want me to drive you?”

  “Nah. My friend Zach’s giving me a ride. He’s headed the same place.” He grabbed my fingers as I started to get up. “Don’t forget to listen to your soundtrack.”

  I kissed him again. I wondered if I should start counting the number of times I kissed him from the moment I said the words “I have something to tell you.” I wondered if I could reach a hundred before Tuesday. Then I realized it didn’t matter anyway because a hundred wasn’t enough. A thousand wasn’t enough.

  I left him sitting there on that bench. Then I drove home to convince my dad to meet with Noah Preston.

  When I got home, my dad was in the kitchen, pouring himself a drink. Mum was at her crafting nook, putting together a new dollhouse. I thought about the yellow gingerbread one that was gone now, donated to some charity store. Was some little girl playing with it, imagining happy families and sunshine for her dolls? The irony made me want to laugh. Instead, I cleared my throat so they’d know I was there.

  Dad looked up. “Hiya.”

  Mum didn’t say anything. The air was thick and soupy with disapproval, and I wondered who the cause was—my dad or me.

  The dining table was set with cloth napkins, flowers, and silverware. Dinner Code situation #1. I smelled food in the oven. “Hi, Dad. Um, are you eating dinner here tonight?”

  “I am indeed,” he said. Whenever he spoke when my mother was around, he bolstered his voice so it sounded more jovial than it usually was, round and loud and jolly. “Why? Have you missed your old dad?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled and leaned against the doorjamb, feeling more like a stranger in my house than ever before. Why did everything have to be so awkward? We tried so hard in certain ways to be a family unit, but the more we tried, the more garishly we stood out. “Something like that.”

  “Dinner will be ready in half an hour,” Mum said, prying open a pot of paint.

  “All right. I’ll go wash up.” I turned and went up to my room.

  I fired up my Mac and checked my email. There was one from someone I’d been conferring with. It was one I’d been waiting for, hardly daring to hope. What I read made me smile. I typed in a quick response and hit send.

  Then, reaching into the small pocket in my jeans, I pulled out the guitar-shaped USB stick Drew had handed me. My soundtrack, he’d called it.

  I felt pulled hard in two directions simultaneously. On the one hand, this was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. This was the stuff of romance books, chick flicks, and middle school daydreams. I wanted to listen to the songs that reminded Drew of me. I wanted to know how he really felt. Even though I’d never been a music addict, I knew the power of those sound waves. I knew the kind of emotion they could invoke. And I wanted, so badly, to hear what Drew heard when he thought of me.

  On the other hand, I was afraid. It was ironic, but I was afraid of hurting myself. What was the point of listening to these songs, of attaching this memory to all of this music? Every time I heard these songs in the future, I’d think of Drew. Every time.

  I thought of myself aged thirty and grocery shopping with three kids in the buggy, hearing a song come over the supermarket speakers and breaking down in the tampon aisle, crying over lost love. Why would I intentionally do that to myself? Physical pain was my nearest and best friend; emotional pain I tried to anesthetize myself from any chance I got.

  But I plugged the USB stick in. I was curious. I was in love. And I figured I’d deal with the pain when I got there.

  Drew had recorded an hour of music for me. I laid back on my satin duvet, closed my eyes, and listened.


  When I got halfway through the playlist, I had to stop to go eat dinner. I’d been crying continuously since the midpoint of the first song, which, naturally, was Secret For A Song by Mercury Rev. It wasn’t an all-out, gut-wrenching sobbing. It was just a quiet, steady trickle of tears out of the corners of my eyes. Staid and stolid, a mingling of emotions, of love and sadness and guilt and longing. I imagined them mixing together like smoke above my heart, just hanging in the air as the music played.

  Downstairs, Mum had lit tapered candles and set them in the middle of the dinner table. It was as if she was setting the table for an honored guest, someone who rarely had the chance to drop in but was always welcomed when he did. I sat down in my chair and shook out my napkin.

  Dad was at the head of the table, checking his Blackberry. Mum took her place and quietly cleared her throat.

  He set his Blackberry aside and smiled at us, bright and big. “So. Saylor. Tell me what’s been going on with you. How’s the hospital?”

  I served myself some lasagna so I wouldn’t have to look at him. His too-bright eyes and his too-bright smile were making me nervous. And how sad was it that he had to down a shot or two of whiskey to sit down to dinner with his family?

  “Um, it’s going really well. I’m enjoying it.” I thought of Drew and the breath whooshed out of me. Tuesday. I had five days before it all came to an end, before the guy I loved began to hate me. With good reason.

  Dad didn’t notice the change in my expression. “Great!” He took the spoon from me and served himself.

  Mum served herself last; just a small silver, barely big enough for a two-year-old.

  “Um, actually, Dad, I wanted to ask if...if you could meet me for lunch tomorrow. At noon.” I kept my eyes on my food.

  I felt Mum’s eyes on me. Dad chewed, swallowed, took a sip of water. I could tell he was buying time. “Really?” he said, finally. “Don’t get me wrong, honey. I’d love to chat. It’s just, my schedule is packed.”

  Even though I was lying to him, it hurt. It hurt that my dad didn’t want to spend time with me. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had lunch just by ourselves, and yet, here he was, making excuses.

  “Right. But, um, it’ll be really quick. I have to ask you some questions about...law school. I think when I go back to school that I might want to go pre-law.”

  That got his attention. His wayward daughter, pre-law? Finally something about me he could share with his golf buddies. He sat back, dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “Well! Isn’t that something? In that case I think I can spare twenty minutes. It’s for the education of a future lawyer, after all!” He laughed that round laugh of his. It echoed against the walls, fell flat onto our plates.

  We ate.

  After dinner, I headed back upstairs to text Noah Preston.

  It’s set, I wrote. Be at The Pearl at noon tomorrow. And thanks.—SG

  Then I laid back down on my bed and listened to the second half of Drew’s playlist. When the strains of the last song faded, I sat up. Grabbing my car keys, I headed out to the twenty-four-hour store to buy a few things.

  Chapter Forty

  The following morning, I knocked on Drew’s front door at nine a.m. He answered in his pajamas, his hair sticking up in places, his eyes bleary. Stubble, incredibly sexy stubble, coated his jaw and upper lip.

  He blinked at me. “Saylor?”

  I walked in, closed the door, and pulled him against me. A few moments into the long, slow kiss, his hands tightened around my waist and I felt him harden against me. I forced myself to pull away.

  “Get dressed,” I said, struggling to breathe normally. “I’m kidnapping you.”

  He smiled, a slow, sleepy thing that made me want to rip his clothes off. “Wait a minute,” he said, pulling me closer. I noticed how severely he was leaning against the wall for balance. “I really liked where that was going.”

  I put my hand on his chest. “Nope. I’m taking you somewhere on a day trip. Get dressed.”

  He let his hands fall and gave me an appreciative look up and down. “Wow. You look...wow.”

  “Thanks.” I smoothed my hands down the tight silky sweater I was wearing, with its deep v-neck. I’d paired it with a push-up bra for impressive results. The whole getup was a lot sexier than my usual hoodie-and-jeans outfit. I’d even worn high heels instead of my boots. I wanted today to be special. “Now get dressed so we can go.”

  “Where are we going, by the way?” Drew grabbed his cane from where he’d let it fall when I’d attacked him and began to make his way to the bedroom.

  I followed, trying not to focus on how much his legs seemed to want to bend and buckle as he walked, each punch of the cane, each dragged step like a bit of Morse code. Dot, dash dash. Dot, dash dash.

  “A little place up north called Icarus Lake,” I said. “Have you heard of it?”

  I opened his closet door and pulled out a shirt. He was right behind me, so I handed it to him and began to riffle through the hangers for a pair of jeans.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice soft like sand.

  “Sit.” I made a shooing gesture toward the bed. “I got this.”

  But he didn’t move. “No.” His voice was quiet, so quiet. “I can do it myself.”

  “I know you can do it yourself.” I turned, a sinking feeling in my chest, like my heart would slip through a slot and disappear into my abdomen somewhere. “I just...I wanted to make it easier—”

  But he shook his head and pressed past me to get his own clothes. I sat on the bed, my hands folded and dangling uselessly between my knees. I hadn’t meant it to be pejorative. I’d done my reading, and I knew that FA patients didn’t like to be viewed as handicapped or less-than. I’d never want Drew to feel like that with me.

  But I knew, at the same time, that when he got his wheelchair, when other people began to see his disability first and him second, I wouldn’t be there for him to bounce things off of me. I wouldn’t be able to come to his house and pull his head down to my lap, raking my fingers through his hair as we listened to music and drifted off to sleep. I wouldn’t be there to cushion any of those blows for him. He’d be reeling from my secret and from having to be in the chair, and all I had was now, to make it easier, better, somehow, anyhow.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  He turned, stood a second, and then sighed and sank down beside me on the bed. Taking my hands in one of his, he said, “It’s not you. You’re just trying to help. It’s just, it’s what I said before. If—when I become disabled enough that I need constant help or someone to check on me every day, I’ll take myself to a community. I’m not going to stick around here and slip down that slope with the people I know.”

  He wouldn’t be going down that slope with me, but not for the reasons he imagined. Not because he’d be going away, but because I’d make him reel away from me in disgust long before then.

  I said, “I know. I remember.” I got on my knees on the bed and kissed him. “I love you,” I murmured against his lips. “Please don’t forget that.”

  He held me closer.

  “The cabin’s been in our family for two generations,” I said as we drove through a tiny winding town called Cedar Grove.

  We were close, and I could feel that old excitement building in my stomach. My family hadn’t taken a vacation to Icarus Lake in years, not since I was in middle school. Something always seemed to come up—my dad’s business trips or my hospitalizations. They were the perfect excuses we needed to not bond.

  The little houses we passed were quintessentially small-town. With the bluish snow covering them, they looked just like the idyllic dollhouses my mother painted and fussed over. I wondered what the families inside were like. Were they just as perfect, with smiling children and parents who played board games in front of a roaring fireplace? But maybe there were no families that like that in real life. Maybe that was just a fantasy we were fed as children. If we told kids the truth, honestl
y, who would ever want to grow up?

  “So what do you do at a lake house in the winter?” Drew grinned. “I mean, I can think of some really fun stuff”—he put his hand on my upper thigh—“but I figure you probably have other stuff in mind, too.”

  “Oh, I thought we could watch some TV,” I said.

  Drew’s face fell. “Really?”

  “No!” I laughed. “You don’t go out to a lake cabin and watch TV. Besides, there’s only a small, ancient set there anyway, just in case we need to watch the news in an emergency.”

  “Whew.” Drew wiped his forehead like he was relieved. “So, seriously, what’s the plan?”

  “You’ll see,” I said, smiling slightly. “Just wait.”

  When we pulled into the driveway, Drew blew out a breath. “Wow.”

  I smiled, put the car in park, and got out to breathe in the cold air. It was the same air as what we breathed at home, I knew. But the air out here had always felt different to me. Not just cleaner, but cleansing. As if you could come here battered and broken and dirty, and in just a few days, come out sparkling and shiny again. As if absolution was simply a state of mind, rather than something you had to seek out.

  I went around and opened the car door for Drew before getting out our overnight bags, his guitar case, and the picnic basket of food I’d packed. Hand in hand, we climbed up the rounded stairs to the front door.

  The cabin wasn’t very big, just a two-story house way out in the country. The eaves of the house were buried in snow. Everything was crisp and cold and quiet, like we were in a storybook.

  The house and land were prized bits of real estate because they sat right on the shore of Icarus Lake, which was a beautiful manmade body of water. We could sit on the back porch of the cabin and throw a rock into the shallow part of the lake. My parents had inherited it from my dad’s parents when they’d died a few years ago, right around the time we stopped coming.