He stops in his pacing and turns his face toward me. I still can’t see his features.
“This is a felony, Elyse. If we get caught I’ll be on the sex offender registry for the rest of my life.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears sting my eyes. What am I apologizing for—getting caught? Coming here now? Being with him in the first place? “I don’t know what to do.”
The lantern finally stops bouncing around. He’s taken it off his backpack and sets it down on a flat rock. Finally I can see his face—his brow furrowed, his mouth twisting unhappily. He sits next to me on the steps, but he doesn’t put an arm around me.
“I don’t either,” he says. The hardness has left his voice. Now he just sounds exhausted. “So do you think your mom will keep her word?”
I hesitate, then nod. “She doesn’t like the cops. She wouldn’t talk to them unless she really felt like she had to.”
“What about your friend?” he asks. “Brynn—will she tell anyone else?”
That I’m less sure of.
“I think she might be done with me,” I say finally. “We talked at school today. She was pretty mad. I think she’ll leave us alone.”
“Think, or know?”
I hug my sweater closer around me. “I can’t be sure.”
He puts his face in his hands. “Fuck.”
We sit like that for a few minutes. I’m still trembling, but now it’s as much fear as cold. I don’t know how I expected him to react—but the distance he’s keeping between us makes me feel more alone than I’ve ever felt before.
“We should never have started this,” he finally whispers. He looks up and sees my face. All at once his expression softens. “You’re cold.”
He takes off his fleece jacket and tucks it around my shoulders. The gesture is too much. A sob escapes my throat. I can’t hold it back anymore. I break down.
“It can’t end like this,” I choke out.
He pulls me close. I nestle against him, his neck warm against my cheek. His fingers curl around the back of my head.
“They’ll always be watching now, though,” he says. “We’ll never be alone. Not really.”
I think about the cabin in the Gorge, tucked away among the trees, quiet and secret and ours. I know we can’t live there forever, not really.
But couldn’t we go somewhere else?
“Aiden,” I breathe. “Let’s leave.”
He’s silent for a minute. I feel the rise and fall of his breath beneath his shoulders.
“Elyse …”
“No, seriously, Aiden. Let’s get out of here.”
“Where would we go?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Away. New York. L.A. Somewhere we can disappear in a crowd. Somewhere we can be together, alone.”
He shakes his head. “Think of what you’d be giving up …”
“What?” I snort. “Life with my mom? Thirty hours a week mopping up spilled soda? A best friend who …” The words catch in my throat. I want to say “stabs me in the back,” but I know that’s not right. I know Brynn thinks she’s helping me. Still, who is she to decide what’s right for me? I’ve been taking care of myself as long as I can remember. I don’t need her—or my mom, for that matter—thinking she knows better.
“It won’t work.” But he looks like he’s running calculations, plotting a course. “What will we do? How will we get by?”
“We’ll figure it out. You did, when you were a teenager.”
“That was different. I didn’t have to take care of someone else.”
“You won’t have to take care of me,” I say. “We’ll take care of each other. We’ll do it together.”
He exhales gently. His breath floats away in a cloud.
“I don’t want you to regret it,” he whispers. “But I would go anywhere to be with you.”
I put my hands on either side of his face, look into his eyes. “Then let’s go. Because I’m yours, Aiden.”
Our lips meet, my fingers cold on his warm cheeks. He gives a little groan of frustration.
“I need a few days to get things ready,” he says.
My heart leaps. “Does that mean yes?”
He gives a strangled laugh. “It means I must be out of my mind.” He kisses me again. “But the thought of living without you is worse than the thought of being caught.”
Every last doubt dissolves. It’s all I wanted to hear. I wipe my face, tears and rain mingling together.
“Do you think you can be ready by this weekend?” he asks.
“I can be ready by midnight tonight,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Friday. I’ll pick you up at the bus stop by the school at midnight.” He examines my face, then smooths my hair back from my forehead. “When we go, we’ll have to move fast. Be ready.”
I nod. I’m already making a mental list of what I’ll need.
I’m already saying goodbye to everything else.
THIRTY-THREE
Gabe
The flames race along the bottom of the house, faster than I could have imagined. I’m moving before I even have a plan.
I run toward the window, waving my arms, but Catherine and her father are already moving, turned away from the window and heading into another room. My phone is in my hand, 911 already punched in. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” The voice sounds far away. I pound on the window.
“Catherine!” I scream. “Fire!”
“Sir, I’m going to need you to calm down …”
I take off around the side of the house, looking for the nearest door. The smell of burned wood and gasoline clogs my nostrils. In my hand the emergency operator’s voice buzzes low and calm. “What is your location, sir?”
“I’m at 157 Meadowlark. There’s a house fire. I can smell gas. There are two people in the house. Hurry, please!” I hang up the phone as I skid around the corner to the front just in time to see the porch erupt into flame.
Fire engulfs the steps, dancing up the pillars into the eaves. I stagger back, blinded by the lurid orange light. A sudden gust of air sweeps in, and for a moment the flames dim.
Then they roar back, stronger than ever.
From far away I hear the sound of sirens. But there’s no time to wait.
I grab a cinder block from the edge of the flower bed. I don’t even feel its weight as I throw it with all my might at the nearest window. The sound of breaking glass is swallowed by the noise from the flames. Jumping up, I grab at the edge of the window and swing my leg over the sill.
“Catherine!” I yell. “Catherine! Where are you?”
I’m in a spartan living room. There’s a plain brown couch, a small flat-screen TV on the wall, and three floor lamps. No decorations, no shelves or old granny-square afghans or anything remotely personal. I can already see a thin gray haze along the ceiling. A fire alarm shrills through the air.
Where is she?
I stumble toward the hallway, and suddenly she’s there, standing in front of me, coughing into her hands. Her eyes squint through the smoke. “Gabe? What are you …”
Her father staggers out of one of the rooms, sliding a beat-up leather bag over his shoulder. “The window’s jammed. We have to go out the front. Go. Go, go.”
Then he sees me.
“What the hell …” His voice is a low snarl.
“The front door’s on fire,” I say quickly. “I broke a window in the living room. Go!”
He grabs Catherine and pushes her ahead of him, shoving past me. I stagger into a wall that’s so hot I can feel the skin on my hand peel away.
A roar thunders through the house, a hot wind gusting. Something else must have caught. The house groans. I make my way after them in time to see Catherine disappear out the window. There are flames running along the ceiling now, licking up the walls. Mr. Barstow stands behind her until she’s out, and then follows without sparing a glance in my direction.
I run for the window, flinging myself out shoulder first. A rush of cool air floods
my lungs, and then impact, my body flattening against the ground. Mr. Barstow and Catherine are already staggering across the street.
I struggle to my hands and knees. The heat swells behind me, and I hear another roar as something else collapses. I can feel embers against my bare skin, singeing the hair off my arms. A fire truck screams up to the house just as I manage to find my feet and run across the road.
Up and down the street neighbors are out on their porches now, watching the blaze. Dog howls echo off every building, mixing with the wailing alarms. I kneel in the cool, moist grass, gulping down mouthful on mouthful of air.
I scramble to Catherine on all fours. She’s coughing, her face streaked with grime. I rest a hand on her back.
“What are you doing here?” she says. Her voice is raspy.
“I had to see if you were okay. Then the fire was moving too fast, and I had to …”
Just then, two ambulances roar up behind the fire truck. Within seconds we’re swarmed by paramedics. One, a middle-aged woman with a tight gray braid, kneels next to Catherine, wrapping a blanket around her. Another tries to lead me away from her.
“No, I have to … I have to stay with her.”
“Come on, son, we need space for everyone to breathe.” I let him steer me by the elbow a few feet away, but I crane my neck to look past him, back toward the Barstows.
Mr. Barstow’s glasses are gone, his face filthy. He gives the EMT an uneasy glance, clutching the messenger bag tightly to his side. I wonder what was worth almost dying for.
The image comes back: the kiss. His hands twining around her hair, his lips against her neck. It sends a shudder through my entire frame, a shudder that turns into a cough when it hits my scorched lungs.
Before anyone can stop me I lurch to my feet and run back across the grass, dropping to my knees at her side. She has an oxygen mask pressed to her face now, but her eyes are wide and startled above it. Her pupils flare, the spinning lights reflected in their depths.
“I saw you. Through the window. I was in the yard and I saw what he did to you,” I whisper, the words spilling out of my mouth before I can second-guess myself. “Let me help you. Let me …”
She recoils as if I’ve hurt her. One of the monitors the gray-haired paramedic attached to her starts to beep more quickly. The woman stares at me fiercely.
“Look, kid, you need to back off …” she starts to say. But before she can get far Catherine takes the mask from her face and tosses it to one side. Her hands slam against my chest, pushing me away.
“Leave me alone.” Her voice is strangled. I stare at her.
“Catherine …”
“No. I’m done with you, don’t you fucking get it?” She’s trembling. I stare into her face, trying to see some sign that this is a put-on, that she’s acting for her dad’s benefit. In the fire’s shifting light she looks half-mad.
I put my hands on her shoulders by reflex. All I want to do is comfort her, but she screams at my touch. It’s not loud—her voice is hoarse from the smoke—but it’s loud enough. Suddenly two burly paramedics swoop in on either side of me.
“Jesus Christ,” mutters the gray-haired woman. “Get this idiot to the hospital before he makes more paperwork for all of us.”
All the strength leaves my body as the paramedics help me firmly into the ambulance. I’m like a puppet with its strings cut, limp and powerless. Behind them I catch a glimpse of Mr. Barstow, a strange, twitchy look on his face as he edges closer to Catherine.
On the far side of the street the fire still blazes against the night. And I know, just looking at it, nothing’s going to stop it, no matter how hard the firefighters try. It’s too hot, too out of control.
It will consume everything in its path.
THIRTY-FOUR
Elyse
It’s the slowest week of my life.
I go through all the motions. I go to school, I go to work. I do my homework. When I see my mom, I speak in terse monosyllables.
There’s a minor scandal at school about both me and Brynn dropping out of the play. Frankie Nguyen corners me after English one afternoon, his face livid with anger. “Kendall’s going to be Juliet,” he says bluntly. “You’re ruining the whole show.” Laura and Nessa won’t even talk to me. When people ask why I did it, I just mumble something vague about family problems. It doesn’t seem to help my case. I spend the whole week eating lunch alone, sitting on the floor next to my locker.
I try not to let it bother me. Soon none of this will matter anymore … but a part of me shrinks in humiliation and resentment. The mental image of Kendall in my gold brocade dress makes something sharp twist into my gut.
Aiden keeps up appearances too—which means he leads the rehearsals for the week, trying to get Kendall up to speed. I wonder what will happen when he doesn’t show up for Saturday’s closing show. By then, though, they’ll barely need him. The play will move ahead on its own steam, and by the time they break down the set we’ll be in another state.
Under my bed, my backpack is ready. It’s packed with a pair of jeans and a few shirts, clean underwear, my toothbrush. My beat-up paperback copy of A Wizard of Earthsea.
At night, when I’ve finished my homework, I stare out the window. I whisper Juliet’s lines to myself. I picture her holding her vial of fake poison, saying her goodbyes to all she’s known. Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins … my dismal scene I needs must act alone.
*
• • •
On Friday night, my mom has work, but her shift doesn’t start until ten. When I get home she’s on the sofa leafing through a magazine. The TV is on, as usual. She’s watching Jeopardy! I keep my head down and try to walk as quickly as I can to my room.
“Hey,” she says, when I’m halfway there.
I pause. Then I turn toward her. She looks exhausted—her eyes are heavy, her hair still uncombed. She probably just woke up.
“Friday,” she says, with an awkward attempt at a smile. I don’t smile back.
“Yeah,” I say.
I chew the corner of my lip. Something tugs at me, tries to pull me to the sofa in spite of myself. I’m still so angry with her. But this is the last time I will have to stand in this shitty apartment and listen to her. This is the last time I will have to worry about the fragility of her feelings, the delicate balance of her sobriety. I don’t know when I’ll see her again—but it won’t be here.
There’s something intense, almost spiderlike about her hands when she’s anxious. They creep toward her cigarettes and light up as if they’ve got a mind of their own.
“Remember … remember when you were little and we used to watch this together?” Mom asks. I shrug. She takes a drag and exhales, and her fingers stop trembling quite so bad. “Whenever you got one right, you had this dance you’d do. Like … an end zone celebration.”
“I guess,” I say.
She sighs and grabs the remote, snapping off the TV. “Come here, will you?”
“I have to get ready for work,” I say, even though I have no intention of going.
“Five minutes. Come on, you can spare five minutes,” she says.
I drop my backpack where I stand and trudge over to the sofa, sitting down on the far end. I’m not in the mood for a lecture, or more scolding. Not from her.
But it’s the last time, says a little voice in my head. The last time she gets to try to tell you what to do. Just play along.
She takes one more drag, then stubs out the cigarette in her ashtray. Her hands start to fidget almost right away, but she looks at me with steady blue eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
I wait. I’m sure there’s going to be more. A “but.” I’m sorry but you just can’t. I’m sorry but you don’t know what’s best. But she doesn’t say anything else. The silence stretches out.
“For what?” I ask.
She leans back against the sofa cushions. “Well, you weren’t wrong a
bout what a shitty mom I’ve been. I’ve … I’ve let you down, again and again. You’ve had to take care of yourself for a long time. It’s not fair. And I’m really, really sorry.”
I don’t know what to say. She’s never apologized for anything before. In all the years that I’ve taken care of her, she’s never said a word about it.
“Okay,” I say warily. I don’t know that I’m ready to forgive her for any of it. I don’t know if I’m supposed to.
She looks down. “I know you’re still pissed at me. About a lot of things. And that’s okay, you can be. I just … it’s important to me that you know I’m trying. To do better, I mean.”
I can’t remember the last time she said that to me.
She gets suddenly self-conscious. “Anyway. That’s all.”
I don’t say anything, and after a while she doesn’t seem to expect me to. But I sit and watch the rest of Jeopardy! with her. I don’t yell out the answers like I used to, even when I know them. But when it’s over, I lean over and rest my head against her shoulder, just for a few seconds. The sensation is so familiar that for just a moment I’m unaccountably sad.
“I’ve got to get ready for work,” I say. I hesitate for a moment. “I love you.”
She looks surprised. A little pleased.
“I love you too,” she says.
*
• • •
I take a long shower and disappear into my bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed for a while, looking around my little room. The things I’ve scavenged over the years, the things I’ve earned. The few things that are mine. I’m going to leave them all behind. But already the sadness is fading, and a sense of excitement replaces it. I’m getting a new start. I’m setting down those anvils I’ve been juggling and walking away.
Lies You Never Told Me Page 18