by Wendy Mills
“You could have at least said, ‘Hey, Jesse, I knew your brother,’” I say quietly. “I wish people would stop acting like Travis dying in the towers is the only thing important about him.”
Mr. Laramore looks at me for a moment. “Hey, Jesse,” he says softly. “I knew your brother.”
“Thank you.” I swallow and trace my fingers along the wood grain of the chair’s armrest. “You were his friend, right? What can you tell me about him?”
He leans his head against the back of the rocking chair. “We kind of lost touch after high school. I left to go to Syracuse, and Travis got into Columbia, which surprised no one because he was sharp. I knew he dropped out before the end of the school year and moved home, but I didn’t see him until I returned for the summer. We tried hanging out a couple of times, but it just didn’t work out. He’d changed so much after what happened with your grandfather.”
“With my grandfather?” I ask. “What happened?”
Mr. Laramore doesn’t answer, just rocks on the creaking porch boards like he’s some freaking old lady.
“What happened with Gramps?” I say.
He sighs. “Your grandfather and Travis were mugged. Travis ran, and your grandfather was badly hurt.”
I shake my head mutely. I don’t want to hear this. Not about my brother.
“Not many people knew, but Travis couldn’t forgive himself for not doing more to help his—your—grandfather. They never caught the guys who did it. By the time I really talked to him about what happened, he was hanging around Topher and his bunch of lowlifes, and he’d already gotten into some trouble. A bunch of fights, some minor larceny. I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t like his new friends, and I don’t think he really wanted to hang around me anymore.
“That’s why I was surprised when he showed up at my house the night before he died. I was home from school for a long weekend, visiting my girlfriend, and your grandfather had just died. Your parents brought him here to a nursing home after the mugging, and he hung on for a while, but it was inevitable. Travis was blaming himself, saying it was his fault. He was so angry that his dad was burying his grandfather’s ashes in town, rather than taking him back to New York City. Travis said his grandfather had lived his whole life in the city, and he’d want to be buried there, where he’d been the happiest. I tried talking him down, but he was a mess. Your grandfather’s memorial service was the next day, and Travis was all hyped up.”
“Did he say anything about going to the towers on the day of Gramps’s memorial service? That was on 9/11, right?” I ask, and the words seem to vibrate in the warm summer night air.
“He was talking crazy. You’ve got to understand. But he did say … he did say he’d like to take some of your grandfather’s ashes to the city.”
My mind is spinning, trying to figure all of this out. “So that’s why he was there? He took my grandfather’s ashes to the city? But why didn’t you ever tell someone?”
He’s quiet for a long time. “The easy answer is no one asked. The harder one is … I couldn’t bring myself to talk to your parents. I should have been a better friend to Travis, and I wasn’t. Hell, I should have gone with him if he felt like that was something he needed to do. Maybe things would have turned out differently. But I didn’t. And I can’t change that.”
Friends are sometimes the only thing that keep us from plunging into the abyss. But you have to reach for them, and they have to be there on the side of the cliff reaching out to you too. I think of Emi, Teeny, and Myra, and squeeze my eyes shut because I almost fell all the way.
“But why,” I say slowly, “did Travis go to the World Trade Center? With the ashes?”
Mr. Laramore is surprised. “That’s where your grandfather worked, all the way up to when … when he got hurt. Your grandfather helped build the towers, then he worked there as some kind of maintenance guy for like thirty years. Travis said it was the place your grandfather liked best in the entire world.”
Chapter Forty-One
Alia
I’m charging up the stairs like I have Lia-strength propelling me. I was so tired before, but my exhaustion seems to have vanished, because all I can think of is my father upstairs, hurt, unable to move. My feet feel light, and I don’t even notice as people press out of my way, murmuring in confusion as I push past without bothering to say excuse me.
“Alia! Alia!” I hear someone behind me calling my name.
At first I don’t stop. I hear it, but I really don’t. I’m too focused on getting up, up, up as fast as I can.
But eventually I realize that I am panting hard, and that I have a major stitch in my side. I’m in good shape, but I know I need to pace myself or I’m never going to reach where I need to go.
I stop in the corner of a stairwell, gasping, as people continue to walk down past me, though there aren’t nearly as many people as there were earlier.
They’re getting out.
A few people ask me if I’m okay, and someone else pours water over my head as they pass. I must look bad.
I hear someone calling my name again. I turn, my hand on the rail, and peer down the stairs. My heart surges as I see Travis coming up behind me, his face determined.
“Holy crap, I didn’t think you’d ever slow down. What are you, a professional stair climber?” he gasps as he reaches me.
“I run,” I say, though I’m breathing hard too.
He nods, leaning over and putting his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What does it look like?”
I smile at him, feeling grateful and overwhelmed. “You don’t even know me. Why would you come with me?”
“I didn’t want to, believe me,” he pants, “but I’m so tired of regretting the things I didn’t do.”
I wait with him as he gets his wind back, leaning against the railing because my thighs are trembling and my heart is pounding.
Travis looks up at me. “I have his ashes,” he says.
“What?” I ask, confused and desperate to continue my race back up the stairs.
“My grandfather’s ashes. He would have wanted to be here. I wanted to throw his ashes from the roof and they never would have let me do it from the observation deck of the other tower. I had Gramps’s ID card, and it still worked, so I just walked right in with the rest of the people who work here.” He’s still breathing hard, and he concentrates on that for a moment. “I waited in the sky lobby until I saw a maintenance guy. I hoped he would have the electronic swipe card to the roof. But—”
“I stopped you,” I say in realization. “You weren’t trying to steal that guy’s wallet. You wanted his swipe card.”
“After you left, I hoped that I would find someone else, but then a security guard got suspicious and made me leave. I never made it to the roof. Even with a card, security officers watch on a camera and have to buzz you through the door. I brought Gramps’s uniform shirt”—he gestures to his shirt, and I realize that somewhere along the line he has stripped off the baggy jersey and is wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt with “McLaurin” embroidered across the pocket—“and I was hoping they’d just buzz me through. It was stupid, but …”
“No,” I say. “It’s not stupid. It’s beautiful. I’m sorry you weren’t able to do it.”
We both try to regain our breath, but I’m itching to go and I turn back to the stairs.
“Alia,” he says.
He’s one step below me, with his messy hair and mismatched eyes.
“I couldn’t let you go by yourself,” he says. “We started this together, we’ll finish it together.”
“Thank you,” I say, and take his hand.
Together, we turn to go up the stairs.
Chapter Forty-Two
Jesse
Adam and I talk about everything. What was your first pet’s name? What was your favorite cartoon when you were a kid? If you could go anywhere not all touristy and obvious, wh
ere would you go? It’s like we are devouring each other, story by story, and this need to know everything feels voracious and almost desperate, like we are kissing with our words and can’t get enough.
His dad is still asking around about a Muslim girl named Alia who was in the towers on 9/11, and after talking to Mr. Laramore yesterday, I can’t help but feel we are getting closer to finding out what happened to Travis that day. Alia still remains elusive, however. I can’t find anything about her on the Internet, and I’d even e-mailed Anne Jonna again to ask if she could put out word on her survivor network, but so far I’ve heard nothing back.
I can’t help but remember what Julia said, that she thought Alia and Travis would have stayed together. And as much as I want to believe that someone must have known Alia was in the towers that day, the reality is that if Travis had not been found with his wallet, or not left a message, my parents would never have known he was there.
Adam and I have been down at the river, listening to the frogs sing and talking in the safety of the shadowy darkness. Now he pulls his new car into a parking space down the street from my apartment. The car isn’t really new, far from it, but he paid for it himself with the money he earned working this summer. He starts college in a couple of weeks, and I ache thinking about him being gone, though he’ll only be a few hours away.
We’re holding hands as he walks me back toward my apartment, the street full of tourists finding restaurants and bars. So far, we’ve not done more than hold hands, though the electricity between us sizzles.
“So, at least I know why Travis was there,” I say as my building comes into view. We stop by a streetlight, far enough away so that no one in the apartment over the shop can see us. As much as we’ve been together over the past month, I’ve been careful not to let my dad ever see us. And, I’ve noticed, Adam isn’t exactly inviting me back to his house either. It makes me want to laugh, or weep, or hit something.
“That’s what you wanted to know, right?” Adam says. “Why your brother was in the towers?”
“Yes,” I say slowly. “But now I want to know all of it. How did he meet Alia? What happened to her? What happened to him? The more I’ve discovered the more I want to know.”
He laughs, a small huff of breath. “That’s life, right?” He reaches for a strand of my hair and rolls it between his fingers.
“I just want to know what happened,” I say, but the words get caught in my throat as he looks at me.
I want to kiss him, but I know that it’s something that will mean way more than it would if he were any other guy. I’m still not sure he’s kissed anyone before, and the thought makes my blood run thick and slow. I reach my finger to touch the dimple in his cheek, the small indention that’s there even when he’s not smiling.
“I lost my faith for a while,” he says suddenly, his voice low, and quivers run along my arms, because of all the things we talked about, we never talked about this. “I lost it when my parents moved here with my sister and I stayed behind with my cousin to finish high school. I did some stuff I’m not proud of, trusted people I shouldn’t have. That’s why I left to come here. I needed to remind myself who I am. But now … now, I don’t know what I’m doing again.”
I stay silent as he runs the back of his knuckles over my cheek and my breath catches.
“I tried to stay away from you,” he says. “The first time I saw you, when we climbed the falls that day, I knew it was going to be hard. And then after you did what you did, I tried to stay angry at you. It felt safer that way. But even that couldn’t keep me away from you.” He laughs a little.
“You don’t have to lose your faith to be with me, do you?” I ask, running my hand across his cheek and then down his neck. He rolls his head to the side, and I feel the soft hair at the back of his neck.
“I think I do,” he says. “Right now anyway. I have trouble doing things half-ass, you know? If I’d already finished college and was thinking about a wife, then we’d be golden.”
Neither one of us moves to step away, to untangle our hands, our hearts.
“I don’t understand why you can’t have both right now,” I say.
“That’s just the way it works,” he says, but doesn’t let go of me.
My neighbor comes out of her door, Mrs. Lawrence walking her dog, and we finally separate slowly and reluctantly. Lightning is flashing far away, and I can feel the faint strum of thunder in my bones.
“Climbing tomorrow, right?”
“Yep.” He grins crookedly before turning and walking away, whistling under his breath.
My phone buzzes as I fumble for my keys, and I pull it out of my bag.
It’s an e-mail from Anne Jonna.
There’s a missing persons poster at the 9/11 museum. A girl named Alia. I think you should go check it out.
Chapter Forty-Three
Alia
I’m leading the way up the stairs, and Travis follows without complaining.
The jet fuel smell is stronger as we go higher, and the smoke is thicker. We run into small groups of people here and there, and while Travis may talk to them, I don’t really notice. I don’t stop. I slow when I just can’t take it anymore, and once I have my wind back, I start up again faster. I concentrate on the glowing paint lines on the stairs and lifting my feet to take one more step.
“I don’t know if we can keep going, Alia,” Travis gasps. “The smoke is getting worse.”
“If my father is up there, it’s getting worse for him too,” I gasp back without stopping.
Travis is still checking doors as we pass, and it scares me that some open and some don’t. What if the door to Ayah’s floor doesn’t open? It’s still a long way up, but what would we do then?
The stairwell walls are creaking, and cracked in places, and somehow I know that the tower is dying, little by little. It makes me want to turn around and race back the way we’ve come, but I have to make sure Ayah is okay.
We turn a corner of the stairwell and see the firemen, and I want to jump with joy.
“My father,” I gasp as I stumble to a stop in front of the two firemen who are standing in the stairway, their faces red. “My father is up there! I think he’s hurt. We need to go find him!”
“What floor?” one of them says immediately, while the other one leans against the wall, his head down. I tell them, and the fireman says nothing for a moment. He’s young, with a thick head of messy hair, a dusting of fuzz across his upper lip, and red-rimmed and exhausted eyes.
“We’re working our way up,” says the other fireman, a heavyset older man with a crew cut. “We’ll find him. You need to go back down. You need to leave the building as quickly as possible.”
“I have to go to him!” I can hear the hysteria in my voice, and Travis puts his hand on my arm.
“How old are you?” the older firemen says. “Sixteen, seventeen? What are you even doing here? If I were your father, I would want you to get to safety. We’ll find him, I promise.”
“Can’t you call someone?” I ask desperately. “Please, call someone and tell them that my father is up there!”
The firemen exchange looks. “Our radio signals aren’t getting through,” the younger one says. “We can’t call out.”
“You need to turn around and go. Right now!” the older one says harshly.
“No!” I cry. “I can’t leave him!”
“Alia,” Travis says quietly.
I ignore him and take a step up the stairs, but the older fireman pushes off the wall and stands beside his younger partner, and they are blocking the stairs. They are not going to let me go up, and, oh God, I need to find Ayah!
“Please! He could be dying!” I want to push past them, I want superhero strength, but I am so tired, and they won’t move, and then Travis has me by the arm, tugging me back down the stairs. I start crying because I didn’t say good-bye to Ayah this morning, I did not kiss his cheek like I usually do, and why didn’t I tell him I loved him?
As I loo
k back, the two firefighters are starting up the stairs again.
Chapter Forty-Four
Jesse
“Who was that?” a voice asks from inside the dark, empty shop.
I jump, still reeling from the e-mail Anne just sent me about the missing persons poster.
“God, you scared me, Dad,” I say, trying to make my voice light. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
My chest feels tight. He’s sitting behind the counter, and I know he has a clear view of the street. He could have seen me and Adam. I never thought he would be in the shop and how could we be so stupid? How had we gotten so careless?
“Who was that?” he asks again, and I know he knows.
“Adam,” I say, hoping that will be enough.
“Adam who?” He knows who he is. I can tell by his voice.
There’s no use in lying. “Adam Ayoub.”
“Did you know he’s Muslim?” I wish I could see Dad’s face, because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t match up with the weird cheery tone of his voice. It’s a small town. I should have known he’d find out.
“Yes, I knew, but he’s not one of them, Dad, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone—”
“He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.” His tone is flat.
I want so badly to say something about how I feel about Adam, but how do I say the words? Not saying them feels like a kind of betrayal of Adam, and saying them is a betrayal of Dad, and which one is worse?
“So, let me get this straight,” Dad says, and his voice is rising, but still with that false, almost happy, tone. “You’ve decided it would be a good idea to hang out with one of the people who killed your brother?” This last part he roars like machine gun spray across the room.