“I know.” I lean my head against the door. “Um … I just want to be alone for a little while. So I can calm down. Is that okay?”
He’s silent for a moment. I wonder what he’s doing, if he’s still standing there.
“Okay. I’m going to head out and get us some dinner. When I come back we can talk.”
“Something besides pizza,” I say. “Please?”
“Okay.”
When I hear his footsteps fade, I slump onto the bathroom floor, staring across the dingy linoleum. This isn’t the man who took me to the ocean for the first time, who kissed the salt spray from my face. This isn’t the man who put me in a spotlight and told me I belonged there. This sullen, paranoid man is a stranger to me.
And I barely recognize myself, for that matter. Not just my reflection, with its dyed-brown hair and sunken eyes, but the person I’ve become. Bored and bratty and irritable.
I want my mom.
The thought pops into my head out of nowhere. Which is ridiculous. I can’t think of a time that I’ve ever gone running to her for comfort or help. I’ve never had that luxury. Still, right this second, all I want is to hear her voice. Her raspy “hello,” followed by a pause as she lights her cigarette and takes a drag, the way I’ve seen her do a thousand times.
What would it hurt? It’s not like she’s set up to track a call. And Aiden’s made clear we’re leaving town as soon as possible anyway.
Slowly I crack open the door and peek out. The room is empty and silent, lit by a single lamp on his side of the bed. There’s an ancient rotary phone next to it. I pick up the receiver and dial Mom’s number.
It rings, and rings, and rings. I wonder if I misdialed. Mom made me memorize her cell number when I was little, and she’s never changed it. I hang up and dial again. Even if she’s at work or asleep or away from her phone, I should get her voice mail by now. A fresh panic washes over me.
I hang up again and sit on the edge of the bed. My stomach swims with nausea. Did she get her service turned off? Did she forget to pay her bill?
I bite the corner of my lip. Then I dial Brynn, hooking the numbers with shaking fingers.
“Hello?”
She picks up on the third ring. The sound of her voice is so familiar my eyes flood with tears. My tongue is clumsy in my mouth; I can’t make it move.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Brynn.”
I hear the quick intake of her breath. “Elyse?”
“Yeah,” I croak. I swallow hard. “Hi.”
“Where the hell are you?” Her voice has shot up an octave. “Do you know how scared I’ve been? Oh my God, Elyse …”
“I, uh … I’m in Nevada,” I say, then give a strangled little laugh. It’s such a relief to hear her.
“Are you okay? Are you safe?”
“I … I don’t know. I guess so. I just … I miss you so much.” I twirl the spiraling cord tightly around my finger. “I tried calling my mom and she’s not picking up. And I didn’t know who else to call.”
The line goes silent for so long that I wonder if we’ve been disconnected.
“Brynn?” I whisper.
“I’m still here.” She’s crying. I’ve never heard her cry for real before—only on stage. “Elyse, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too. I wish I could go back and …”
“I’m so sorry,” she says again. “But your mom. She … she’s dead.”
My lungs clench tight, the breath going motionless.
“No.” I almost don’t recognize it as my own voice. It seems too small, too weak.
“She relapsed. And I guess when people relapse sometimes they don’t know their limits anymore, and she took too much. The doctor wouldn’t tell me much because I’m not family, but her friend Norma—I guess that was her sponsor at NA?—she called to tell me.” She sniffles. “It was last week. I’m so sorry.”
I sink off the bed onto the floor, onto the stained and threadbare carpet. I push my face into the bedspread and scream. Somewhere near my ear I can hear Brynn talking, but I’m not listening.
My mom.
Alone in the apartment. Walking from room to room. Tense, a bundle of tics, her legs shaking, her toes tapping. Pain shooting along her spine. Pain gripping her nerves like a vise. Trying her hardest not to pick up her phone to call that doctor again—any of those doctors again. Going through the roster of useful-not-useful Narcotics Anonymous slogans. One day at a time. This too shall pass. Keep coming back. God grant me the serenity …
But she called for the refill. She poured a pill into her hand. She took one with water but it didn’t seem to help. So she took another. She took a handful. She washed them down and went to bed.
My mom.
Somewhere far away I hear Brynn’s voice. “Elyse? Elyse, just tell me where you are and I can be there in …”
Someone takes the receiver out of my hand. I look up into Aiden’s face, deep-shadowed, eyes burning. He hangs up the phone with a deliberate calm more terrifying than any rage would be. His teeth are bared beneath his moustache.
“There’s no going back,” he says, and his voice is edged in steel.
And then he rips the phone out of the wall.
THIRTY-NINE
Gabe
“Is that all you’re going to eat?” Sasha asks, hanging on my arm. She picks a piece of sausage off my paper plate and pops it in her mouth. “Aren’t you hungry?”
The question makes me want to laugh. But I just shake my head. “Not especially.”
Tonight’s the annual Mustang Sallys fund-raiser. Savannah Johnston’s dad lets the girls take over his downtown barbecue restaurant. He spends all day cooking, and they show up in their sequined uniforms to serve. For twenty bucks you get a groaning plate of meat, macaroni and cheese, and corn bread, with peach cobbler for dessert.
Usually I can be counted on to eat my weight in barbecue. But I haven’t had much of an appetite in the month since I’ve gotten back together with Sasha.
The restaurant is packed to the gills with kids from school and their families. Most of the Sallys are working. Sasha’s taking a “break” that’s now spanned forty minutes. I’ve seen a few people shoot her exasperated looks, but no one’s tried to call her out.
She’s back to doing whatever she wants.
“Poor baby,” she coos. “Are you feeling okay?” She toys with a piece of my hair. My skin crawls every time she touches me, but I keep my expression steady.
“I’m fine,” I say. My tone must be too brusque, because her eyes narrow. I take a deep breath and force a smile.
Placated, she leans against my arm.
I’m keeping my part of the bargain. I hold her hand in the hallway. I carry her books for her. I wait obediently by her locker while she gossips and combs her hair. I do all this even though I can hear the snickering and whispering all around us. I try not to look at their expressions as we walk past; I try to keep my head straight ahead. Everything’s back to a superficial kind of normal. She even called the cops to drop the charges she’d brought against me. “It was all a misunderstanding,” she cooed, meeting my eyes as she cradled the phone to her ear. Of course they’re still investigating me for arson—but she likes that. It makes me seem like a bad boy. It makes her parents hate me even more.
My parents are more baffled than angry. “I don’t understand why you’d want to be with someone who did all the things you said she did,” my dad said when he found out, shaking his head.
“Why would you risk it?” my mom put in. “She went to the police about you. You can’t afford to get on the cops’ radar, mijo. There are people who will assume that you’re a criminal just because of the color of your skin. They’ll take Sasha’s side over yours every time. This girl is dangerous for you.”
They don’t understand that I’m doing this for them. That I’m trying to keep them safe.
Them, and Catherine.
Though Catherine might be well out of Sasha’s grasp
by now. She hasn’t been at school in a month, and I can’t seem to get any information on where she is. I logged into Sekrit on my new phone as soon as I got it, and I sent her half a dozen messages, but she hasn’t responded to any. I had Caleb drive me past her house a few days after the fire—it’s a wreck, a burned-out ruin with police tape across the door. So they’re staying somewhere else, obviously. But where? I look back at my last few messages.
daredevil_atx: I just want to know that you’re ok.
daredevil_atx: I’m so sorry about everything.
daredevil_atx: I love you.
The silence is resounding. It speaks volumes. I’ve given up. Just like I’ve given up on ever getting free of Sasha.
Sasha’s hair’s still dark, but at least she’s not straightening it anymore. She’s back to dressing like her old self, like she fell straight out of an Instagram account. She smirks up at me now.
“Too bad Irene and Caleb couldn’t come,” she says. “They always eat like pigs.”
“Mmm,” I say. She’s testing me; she wants me to stand up for them, to tell her to be nice, so she can accuse me of siding with them. I’m not going to rise to the bait.
“Or is Irene finally on a diet?” she persists.
Irene is currently as far from this restaurant as she can be. She made clear that she was done with my Sasha drama. “You’re nuts,” she’d seethed. “You cannot get back with that psycho. I’m so over this shit, Gabe.”
Caleb was a little more sympathetic, but not very reassuring. “How long can you keep this up? I mean, she’s either gonna kill you or marry you sooner or later, man.” The thought makes me squirm in my seat, even now. I can’t think about the future, or I’ll lose my nerve.
All I can do is keep her happy, here, now.
She raises a morsel of brisket to my lips, and I open my mouth mechanically and accept the treat like a dog.
“There you go,” she says. “That’s not so bad, is it?”
It is, Sasha. It’s the worst thing. This is the worst possible thing, and it’s all thanks to you.
A few of Sasha’s friends make their way to our table and heave themselves onto the seats, looking exhausted. Marjorie Chin’s pinned-on cowgirl hat is listing to one side; Natalie McAfee is covered with a thin sheen of sweat.
“It’s crazy this year,” Natalie says, fanning herself with a paper plate. “I’ve never seen it so busy.”
“How much did we make?” Sasha asks.
“Just under five thousand so far. We’ll definitely be able to get new costumes for the spring concert.” Natalie smiles at me. “How’s the food? I haven’t been able to get any yet.”
“Here.” I shove my plate at her. “Have mine. I’m full.”
She glances at Sasha, and I realize she’s asking permission. After a moment Sasha gives an almost imperceptible nod, and Natalie picks at my food.
“How’re you doing, Gabe?” Marjorie asks. “I mean, after the fire and everything?” I see curiosity in her eyes, and something else. Pity. The tiniest glimmer of it. Everyone knows I’m Sasha’s bitch. Everyone knows she’s won.
“Never better, Mags,” I say, summoning up my jauntiest tone. “Turns out chicks love reckless heroics. Right, baby?” I kiss the side of Sasha’s head. If I’m going to put on a show, I’m going to do it right.
Sasha giggles. “Oh, we’re calling it heroic now? I thought you were still wanted for arson or whatever.”
Marjorie’s eyes widen slightly, though I know her surprise is as much an act as my good mood is. Sasha’s made damn sure everyone knows the cops have been sniffing around. Just another way to keep people talking; another way to keep me humiliated.
“Not technically,” I say carelessly, as if it’s all a big joke. “I’m just being investigated. There’s a difference.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I try to ignore it. Sasha hates it when I check my phone around her, even though she spends half her life texting.
“I heard that girl Catherine set the fire herself,” Natalie says, her freckled nose wrinkling slightly. “Someone told me she moved here because she burned her school down in California.”
Someone. How coy.
“You know she was a weed dealer?” Marjorie says, looking at Natalie. “She used to hang out with all the burner kids.”
Me. The burner kids being me. How fun this game of telephone is.
“Guys, that’s all just gossip.” Sasha, being the bigger person. So magnanimous. “The truth is, we don’t know anything about her.” She pats me on the shoulder. “I’m just glad Gabe was passing by and could get her out of there. Someone could have been hurt.”
My phone vibrates again. I can’t stand it anymore. I pull it out and glance surreptitiously down at the screen.
And then I stand up.
Sasha rolls her eyes. “Can’t you go five minutes without looking at that thing?”
“I have to go,” I say. My voice is flat and distant. It gets her attention.
“Where?” she asks, eyes narrowing again.
I don’t answer. I step away from the picnic table and hitch my backpack up my spine.
“Gabe? What the fuck?” she says behind me. Then, louder: “Where do you think you’re going?”
There will be hell to pay later. But right now I don’t care. Right now, all I can think is that I have to move. I have to find Caleb and borrow his jeep. I have to get out of here.
I look down at the screen of my phone one more time. The two messages, sent in short succession, are still there.
dollorous00: Hill Country Motel, room 11
dollorous00: Please hurry
FORTY
Elyse
The air is heavy, even at midnight. I roll out of the bed as gently as I can. On the other side, Aiden shifts in his sleep.
I pull on my jeans and a T-shirt and go into the front room of the spartan little bungalow. We have a thrift store sofa, a few wobbly lamps, a bookshelf where I keep the tattered paperbacks I’ve managed to accumulate over the past year. I thumb through a few of them, trying to distract myself, but I’m restless. So I pick up the car keys from the bowl by the door and slip out the front.
It’s one of the few little rebellions I have left. He usually keeps a close eye on the keys, but I take them every chance I get. He taught me to drive as soon as we got to California; he wanted me to be able to get us out of there quickly if I had to. But he hated doing it. He hated the idea that I could get in the car and leave him if I wanted.
I like imagining it. I like the vision of myself crossing the county line, without bags or baggage, the radio blasting and my hair whipping around the open window.
But where would I go?
Outside, a tongue of lightning flickers across the horizon. I breathe deep. The air smells like rain. It feels good to get out of the cramped little house. It feels good to know he’ll get in the car tomorrow morning and see the odometer—he always notices the odometer—and realize that, once again, I slipped his grasp. Even if it was just for a moment.
The car—a ten-year-old beige Toyota—starts easily. I tune the radio and find a mournful folk-rock ballad that I like. I can’t remember who sang it. It was some time in my old life, back in Portland. It feels like a million years ago.
Thoughts of Portland always bring with them thoughts of my mom, thoughts of Brynn, thoughts of myself as a dumb, naïve kid. Thoughts of everything I’ve lost. It’s like pressing hard on a bruise—a low-grade ache that suddenly swerves into blinding pain. I quickly change the station and land on an oldies channel, Ronettes crooning in harmony. I pull away from the curb and feel some of the tension leave my shoulders.
I weave slowly through the streets. I don’t know where I’m going; I’m not even sure I know how to get home. The houses slowly change around me, expanding up and out from modest ranch homes to sprawling mansions nestled against the hills. There’s not much traffic this time of night. I tap the steering wheel in time with the music. “Be My Baby.” “Daydrea
m Believer.” “Sixteen Candles.” Sugary, bright-eyed music about love and innocence.
If Aiden wakes up and finds me gone, he’ll freak out. He’s gotten more and more paranoid and possessive; sometimes he scares me. Sometimes, the way he looks at me—I think he’d rather kill me than lose me. I think he’d rather we both go down in flames than admit defeat.
Buddy Holly comes on the radio, voice scornful and mean. “That’ll Be the Day.” I reach up to change the channel again. I don’t want to listen to him gloat. I don’t want to listen to a man singing about a woman who’s afraid to leave.
Just as my hand finds the dial, something thumps against my car.
Everything gets very bright or very dark, the contrast in my vision turned way up, glittering and lurid. I slam the brakes. I put the car in park. I sit there, my hand still outstretched, the Buddy Holly song still swaggering along. There’s a shape on the ground in front of me, dark in my headlights.
Fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh—
The sky opens up, and it starts to rain.
I turn off the car and grab my umbrella. My headlights fade as I step out of the car, my blood roaring as loud as the downpour, pulse screaming that this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening … but the shape stays motionless, sprawled on the pavement. Rivulets are already moving around it. This is nothing like Portland rain, that lazy drizzle. This is hard and violent and punishing. And that’s what somehow gets me to move: not the fact that the figure in the street might be dead, but the fact that the rain is falling on it.
On him. I can see that as soon as I take a step closer. He’s a kid—my age, I think, Latino, with dark curls plastered to his forehead from the rain. When I see that he’s breathing I take a shuddering gulp of air myself. I kneel down to get a better look, holding up my umbrella with one hand.
He stares up at the sky with a blank, dazed expression. There’s a raw-looking scrape on one cheek, and his arm is lying at a strange angle to his body. A few yards away is a splintered skateboard, one wheel still spinning.
Lies You Never Told Me Page 21