Hide with Me

by Sorboni Banerjee

  That’s not when I almost cried though.

  It was after Mattey’s dad sewed me up as a favor. Because he believed me when I said a metal ladder fell on me. He believed me that we just couldn’t afford the ER. He never thought to ask if my dad did it to me. Because why would he think Danny Evans would do something like that to his own kid? Everyone knew Danny Evans was a good man, a hard worker, salt of the earth.

  Almost crying feels like choking.

  I would never say what really happened then, and again and again, because that would ruin everything left to ruin. They’d take me away. No family. No Tanner High. No football. If my dad got in trouble, I’d be completely alone. And the thing was, some days he was just fine, funny even, like he used to be. Smartass. Tough. The kind of guy you wanna grow up and be like, comfortable in your own skin. Salt of the earth. Hard worker. Good man. Believe it.

  “Cade?”

  Jane’s whisper broke through the darkness of the barn, soft and small. My heart leapt, and I spun around.

  “I found him,” she said. “I found Hunter. He’s alive.”

  JANE

  I hadn’t planned on finding Hunter. I’d planned on running. Everything kept going in and out of focus. It wasn’t as bad as in the cornfield. Yet. If I kept bleeding like this, it would be.

  I waited until the last of the police cars left and Cade’s father retreated inside his house. The cleanup crew couldn’t come until the morning. That meant Cade’s living room would be soaked in Ivan’s blood all night. He didn’t deserve this. Neither did Mateo. Maybe I could find some women’s center or something, pretend I was a domestic violence victim. No, they would take me to a hospital. To stay invisible, I needed Mateo to stitch me back up again. And then I would go. And their lives could be normal again.

  I crawled out from under the porch and made my way across the dead lawn toward the bushes. That’s when I heard the whine. Hunter.

  Seeing the dog hurt made me stop hurting.

  We crawled toward each other and met on our bellies, bleeding and panting. I took his paws in my hands and then grabbed his furry head while he licked my face. No way was I leaving him there. What if Cade never found him?

  “I’m coming back for you. Don’t you move,” I whispered.

  I forced myself to stand, then limped in the direction of the fields and the barn.

  I wasn’t sure at first that Cade was inside, but then I heard the whir of the little fan. When I told him about Hunter he got up and rushed toward me, taking my shoulders in his hands.

  “How bad is he?”

  “He’s whimpering but alert, and he can move. I’ll show you where,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  “Are you?” Cade slid an arm around me to prop me up, and I found myself burying my face in his chest and just holding on.

  “I didn’t know who got shot. When I heard the noise inside . . .” I trailed off.

  “The guy. He’s dead,” Cade said into my hair.

  “I know. I . . . was . . . under the . . . the porch . . . the whole time.” I was having trouble even talking.

  “Wow, you can barely stand up. I need to get you and Hunter to Mattey.”

  Cade helped me sit down on the floor, flipped the flashlight back on, and shined it around the barn until he found what he was looking for.

  “Let’s get you up in this wheelbarrow,” he told me. “I can’t carry you both.”

  Cade pushed me as fast as he could in the dark. I aimed the flashlight and told him which way to go to find his dog. Hunter started whining the second he heard Cade’s voice, and Cade ran over and grabbed his furry face. He spoke low to him—Hey, buddy, it will be okay—murmuring over and over as he wadded a blanket against the gunshot wound.

  “It looks like it only got him in the shoulder,” Cade said as he lifted his dog in next to me in the wheelbarrow. “I’m hoping, anyway.”

  He left us at the edge of the yard and peered in the windows of his house to make sure his dad was asleep before starting up the truck. I held Hunter on my lap as we sped down the road, carefully watching the rise and fall of his uneven breathing. Cade handed me his phone to dial, so he could keep one hand on the wheel and rest the other on Hunter’s head, lightly stroking his ears. I put it on speaker.

  “Cade? What’s wrong?” Mateo answered in a half-asleep muddle.

  “It’s bad. Hunter got shot. Can you meet me at the office?”

  “Wait, what? What do you mean, shot? How? Where’s Jane?”

  “She’s with me. Just please . . . meet us there. I’ll tell you everything.”

  Mateo showed up in the empty parking lot on his bike in his pajama pants. They had cowboy hats and bucking broncos on them that in some other reality would have made me laugh. He came around the passenger side and gently scooped up Hunter, balancing him against his body as he unlocked the door of his dad’s veterinarian office. It shared a plaza with a pawn shop and little café called Mama’s Empanadas. Coupon fliers from the grocery store across the street had blown against the cinder-block walls, collecting with discarded paper napkins and a couple of cigarette butts.

  Cade helped me slide out of the truck and wrapped a sturdy arm around me as we hurried inside.

  Mateo flipped the switch, and the lights snapped on with a fluorescent buzz.

  “Oh man,” he said as the unforgiving light hit. “You look awful.”

  He took a step toward me, but I shook my head.

  “Hunter first,” I said.

  “What the heck happened?” Mateo asked.

  I let Cade tell him, while Mateo poked around the hole torn in Hunter, who lay there in that way dogs do when they trust that you are going to help them. Mateo put down the probe, mouth dropping open as Cade talked.

  “Your dad killed a guy?”

  Cade nodded.

  “And Sheriff Healey believed you about everything.”

  “Yep.”

  Mateo made an O shape with his mouth and blew out all his air to calm down as he tried to concentrate on Hunter. Bloody gauze piled up on the table. Cade rested a hand on Hunter’s back, keeping him from thrashing around. Hunter was whining the saddest whine, and Cade pressed his forehead against his dog’s, softly reassuring him.

  “Two holes!” Mateo suddenly exclaimed.

  Concerned, Cade leaned forward.

  “No, that’s a good thing. See, the bullet went in here . . . and out right up here. It’s a clean sweep.” Mateo grinned victoriously. “Big man upstairs must be looking out. Jane, you and Hunter are so lucky no major organs got damaged.”

  “Yeah,” I echoed. “Lucky.”

  To be shot or stabbed, running and scared . . . it can all fall under “lucky” as long as you’re not dead.

  CADE

  “I should have my own reality show!”

  Mattey was beyond pleased with himself. With good reason. I shook my head at him.

  “Unbelievable, man.”

  Hunter was sleeping on his good side, a square of fur shaved off with only a couple of little x’s stitched on the patch of bare skin like a game of tic-tac-toe.

  The bathroom door clicked open and Jane stepped out, supporting herself against the wall. She looked a million times better, but I still reached out to guide her to a chair.

  Jane rested a hand gently over the new stitches on her stomach.

  “Makes a difference doing it here, huh?” I said.

  “Numbing spray”—she shot me a tired, barely there smile—“is pretty key.”

  “I feel better about it now,” Mattey added. “I was worried the barn was dirty and it was going to get infected.”

  “Now you tell me.” Jane gave him a mock scowl.

  Mattey brushed it off, still on a high from being the amazing kid doctor. He rummaged through the front desk and found some chips and candy.

  �
�Anyone else hungry?” he said through a mouthful, spinning on the receptionist’s stool.

  “Actually, I might be,” Jane said. She sank down onto one of the waiting room chairs, nibbling a chip. I grabbed a cup of water for her to sip and then sat back down on the floor with Hunter where he was sleeping. I left my hand right on his rib cage so I could feel the reassuring rise and fall of his breath.

  “So . . . uh . . . now what?” Mattey asked.

  “Um . . . ,” I said. “I guess I’m going to take Jane north once she’s up for it.”

  “Where north?” Mattey turned to Jane.

  Jane shrugged. “I was thinking Maine?”

  “Why Maine?”

  “Closest to Canada I can get without a passport,” she said.

  “Have you ever been to Maine?” he asked.

  “My mom went there once. She said there were puffins. And lighthouses.”

  “Is that where she lives?” Mattey asked.

  “No.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Mattey looked baffled. “Do you know anyone there?”

  “No.”

  Jane glanced over at me for help deciphering his intentions.

  “What are you thinking, Mattey?” I asked.

  “I mean, the guy after you is dead, right, Jane?” Mattey said.

  “Right,” Jane cautiously agreed.

  “So,” Mattey said, “why not just stay?”

  “Here?” Jane shook her head no.

  “What’s she gonna do?” I had to agree with her. “Keep living in my barn? Start school with us?”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Jane let out a little laugh at the notion.

  “It’s a great idea,” Mattey insisted. “Would anyone think to look for you at our high school? I dunno, dye your hair or something. My sister would do it for you. Say you’re Cade’s cousin.”

  Jane frowned, not buying it. “Why in the world would I stay here?”

  “Because we’re here,” Mattey answered simply. “Who else do you have?”

  JANE

  Who else do you have?

  Back at the barn with Cade, Mateo’s question stayed in my head. It filled me up. It emptied me completely.

  There were only two people who ever mattered to me. And I didn’t have them anymore.

  Raff was dead. And my mom might as well be. I hadn’t seen her since I was four.

  When you are four, there is no one better than your mother. All I ever needed was the touch of her soft hand playing with my hair, her wiry arm around me in a sideways hold, my face resting on her rib cage while she sang me to sleep. She was gone so much that when she was home and mine, all mine, it was pure magic, the shimmer of a fairy. We would dance, twirling with our arms over our heads. She showed me first position, second, how to pirouette. She told me she should have been a ballerina; maybe someday, when I was a big girl, I could be.

  I didn’t notice the marionette angles of her body, the caved-in sockets around her eyes so obvious to me now in the one picture of us I’d kept. I had no idea what the white “sugar” was that she put in pipes. I thought everyone had to take their medicine through needles in their arms.

  And I certainly couldn’t comprehend that it was better for her to leave me with someone else, like she said. I cried so hard that day my little world pulsed in and out, dizzy, sick.

  A four-year-old only understands that her mother is gone. The reasons why didn’t matter. They still don’t.

  So when Mattey said stay, a warmth settled somewhere in my chest. Tanner, Texas. Hiding in plain sight. It could be the smartest or worst move of my life.

  I reached out and ran my fingers over Hunter’s soft snout. His nostrils twitched, and he gave me the smallest of licks hello. Cade gently stroked Hunter’s velvety ears. We lay there, on our backs, Hunter between us. The barn smelled to me like old paperback books. The fan sounded like pages turning. Moonlight through the loose wall slats boxed us in with pale lines that intersected the octagon glow of a hurricane lamp. A reverse cage. Inside was the good place to be. The bars were there to keep the world away.

  “Are you okay?” Cade asked.

  “Nothing like cat pills to take the edge off.”

  “That’s actually just aspirin I swiped from my dad.” Cade smirked at me. “But I can ask for some cat pills if you prefer. The new stitches feel better?”

  “It’s good to be stitched up again.”

  “That guy busted them open, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Ivan.”

  “Ivan who?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What’s your name?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Come on . . . don’t you think I deserve to know something about you?”

  Cade propped himself up on an elbow so he could see my face and tugged at my wrist. I pulled my hand away.

  Cade scrutinized me. His gray eyes narrowed. “Jeez, girl. How many skeletons do you have in your closet?”

  How little could I tell him to make him still feel like I was giving him something?

  “Honestly, Cade, the less you know, the better. For real. I don’t want to be that other person anymore. Can’t I just stay Jane?”

  My words came out in a torrent, and I could see Cade’s resolve soften at my urging.

  “All right, relax,” he said. “Jane it is.”

  But really, how could Jane be it? It couldn’t be that easy to . . . become someone else.

  “I’m sorry I got you mixed up in all this,” I said.

  “What? Almost getting me shot by a hitman? Eh, that’s nothing.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “I know, I know. It’s how I deal with things,” Cade said.

  “It’s not fair to you.” I got quiet for a bit, thinking it over. “I can’t stay.”

  “I mean, for a while, you gotta,” Cade said, pointing to all the bruises on my face, my black eye, the scab crusted at my hairline. “You’re a mess. You get on a bus looking like this, someone’s for sure calling the police.”

  “I know. Also, I don’t have a dollar on me, unless we find my bag,” I said. “But Mattey’s idea . . .”

  “Mattey is a fixer,” Cade said. “He stitched up your cut, and now he wants to fix the rest of you.”

  “And he thinks me staying here will do that?”

  “Sure. He’s happy here. So he thinks you would be too. That’s how Mattey works.”

  “You’re not happy here.”

  “I’ve got one more year, and then I’m hoping I get picked up to play ball and get the hell out. That’s what keeps me happy.”

  “Well, I guess that means my lease to live in your barn would only be good for one year then.” I let out a sarcastic laugh and immediately winced. “Can I have some of that whiskey from before?”

  “What hurts?”

  “Everything.”

  Cade handed me the bottle.

  “Do you want some?” I asked.

  “No, thanks. I don’t drink.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my father does,” he said.

  “Too much?”

  “Way too much.”

  “Has he always?”

  “My mom . . . left.” Cade’s answer was stilted, like he didn’t usually talk about this. “That’s when it got real bad.”

  “She didn’t take you with her?” I asked. My stomach twisted for him.

  “She said my dad needed me more.”

  “An excuse,” I softly said.

  Cade scanned my face and then nodded in agreement. “Sounds like maybe you get it.”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “I think he’d like it bet
ter if I were gone too. I remind him she’s not here.”

  “He saved your life today.”

  “Lucky he’s a good shot even when he’s hammered,” Cade responded flatly.

  I put the bottle down.

  “You don’t have to stop,” Cade said.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Seriously, have some.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  The fan buzzed soft and steady between us, a cool breath on my face, his, back again.

  “Let’s say I did stay,” I said. “How would your dad not find me?”

  Cade snorted. “That’s the least of your worries. He never comes out this way. I don’t think he even remembers this barn is here.”

  “What if people ask him about a niece staying with him he doesn’t know he has?”

  “What people? He’s too embarrassed to go into town,” Cade blurted out and then abruptly stopped.

  He got up and started pacing. He stopped by the door and kicked at it, lightly, over and over until a piece of the dried-out wood came loose with a clatter.

  “Everyone knows he got ditched by my mom for a dirty cop,” he finally mumbled. “Some jerk who got rich taking cartel bribes. Prince frickin’ charming.”

  It made perfect sense now, his reaction to me, Raff, Ivan. Y’all can rot with the cartels together.

  Cade reached down and picked up the broken slat. He pushed down with either hand until it snapped in half. It separated easily into giant splinters that he began to peel into smaller and smaller slivers.

  “Meantime, him and me? We’re still right here . . . living the dream. Look at this dump.”

  Sharpness. The wood. His voice. It was jagged with the reality he hid from everyone. As he paced in and out of the cage of light, the lines cast made Cade look covered in cracks.

  “A dump of a home is still a home,” I said.

  “Is it?”

  “You’re letting it be home for me. For now.” I took a deep breath. “Look, if you really mean what you say about me staying, I think . . . I think I will. But only until I’m better. And hopefully I’ll find my money.”