Wish Girl

by Nikki Loftin

  And what would Mom do anyway? Probably just tell Dad, like she had in San Antonio. Then Dad would have to face facts again: His son was the biggest wimp in the world.

  “It was hard work,” I said. I thought about Doug’s hammer-like fists. “Very hard.”

  “Good,” Mom said, concentrating on her bills again. “You need to get a little stronger. Oh, and I signed you up for young leaders camp. It’s sports in the mornings, public-speaking lessons and character building in the afternoons. You start in a week.”

  I almost laughed. Public speaking? I’d rather get beaten up by Doug and Jake for a week. “I need to shower,” I said. “Take a Tylenol. And a nap.” I had a feeling it was going to hurt much worse in the morning.

  Mom didn’t even answer. Didn’t even look back up.

  Chapter 21

  The next morning, I slept in. By the time I got up around eleven, everyone else had eaten. I grabbed a leftover waffle and shuffled into the living room. Dad and Laura were tuning up her guitar. I hurt so bad—if I had to listen to them wail and beat on things all day long, I wouldn’t survive.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said, peeking into the den where they practiced.

  “Whoa, Pete,” Dad said. “You look terrible. Did you get in a fight with a coyote?” He laughed and went back to messing with the tuner in his hand. Laura gave me a closer look, though.

  “What did happen?” she asked. “Did you fall down the hill?”

  “Like you care,” I spat out. I couldn’t tell her what had happened—or that it was because of her. She’d just tell again, and then I’d be worse off. But I didn’t have to be nice to her.

  “Fine, be that way,” she said. “I can’t wait for you to go to camp. Maybe they’ll teach you not to be such a rude little weirdo.”

  “Laura,” Dad warned. “Apologize.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m sorry you’re such a rude little weirdo, Peter.”

  “Whatever.” Ignoring Laura, I interrupted Dad’s guitar tuning. “Dad, the Colonel’s wife—Mrs. Empson—wanted me to come back out today and finish cutting the weed vines off her fence.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I said, amazed at how lying to Dad had gotten so easy. I wasn’t even sweating, not a bit.

  Dad sighed. “You don’t have to go again. It’s pretty hard work for a kid. Too hard, according to your mother. She said you looked like something the cat dragged in. She was worried. You do look rough today.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying not to lean so heavily on the doorframe. It hurt my ribs to stand up straight. “Love the confidence.”

  He had to say yes. I had to get to Annie and warn her about the guys. She shouldn’t be going to the valley anymore, not if they were watching her. Who knew what they’d do?

  “Fine,” Dad said. “You can go after lunch. Keep Carlie occupied until then? We’ve got to get this set straightened out, right, Laura?”

  “Whatever,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  By the time lunch was over, Dad and Laura had driven nails into my head for two hours, and I was ready to run away, even if Doug and Jake were out there waiting.

  Run away. The thought kept coming back to me, over and over, as I walked away from the house and toward the valley. Annie and I had been joking about it, but now it seemed like a real option—for me, at least. Better than waiting around to be beaten, or worse.

  If only there were some way to really do it. I knew where I’d run: deep into the valley. I had a feeling I’d be safe enough—from natural things, at least. But not Doug and Jake. And Mom and Dad would find me, I knew that.

  Maybe if I did run, even if they caught me, they’d at least take me seriously. Maybe then they would shut up long enough to listen.

  Ha. Like that would ever happen. I was pretty sure standing still and silent for even half a minute would be impossible for my parents, for Laura. Carlie had a better chance of understanding me than they did.

  Even though Mom had tried over and over since I was little, she’d never really understood me. And Dad had never wanted to.

  That wasn’t my fault. It was my fault they didn’t trust me, though. Dad had made me promise to have Mrs. Empson call him when I got there. Checking up on me. After all the sneaking out, I guess I was lucky he’d let me leave the house at all.

  I kept feeling like I was being watched as I traveled down the road. I had brought Laura’s old softball bat with me, just in case Doug and Jake decided to jump me again. It didn’t make me feel safe, but it kept me from feeling helpless.

  I had taken two Tylenol that morning, the only reason I was even able to stand up at all, I figured. By the time I got to the triangular red house, I felt like I’d walked a hundred miles.

  The Colonel’s wife met me at the door, carrying her shotgun. She set it down when she saw who it was, though.

  “You walk quiet, boy,” she said, like she disapproved. “I almost didn’t hear you coming at all. I’m gonna have to get me a dog.” She pulled a pair of glasses off a chain on her neck and perched them on her nose. “You look like heck. You fall down a mountain?”

  “I fell into a cactus,” I said, leaning on the side of the rocking chair by her front door. I let the softball bat fall at my feet.

  “Sure,” she said, looking me over. “A cactus with fists and a temper. Two cactuses, I’d say.” I didn’t speak for a moment, and neither did she. “So, you came back for more work,” she asked at last.

  “Not really,” I said. “But my dad thinks so. I was hoping you could call him, tell him I got here.”

  “And then you’ll run off into the valley? Your folks are going to get wise, boy. You should tell them.” She hummed a little in the back of her throat. “You should tell them a lot of things, I suspect. Might help.”

  “They won’t listen to me. They never do.”

  “Hmm.” She considered, plucking at a hair on her chin while she thought. “I can’t see how going down in the valley could hurt you. Or them. It’s good to be out in nature. Good for the soul and the body. But I’m not going to lie for you. You want me to tell your daddy you’re working for me, you’re going to have to work.”

  Oh, no. Not more vines, I thought. She laughed.

  “Thinking loud again. Here.” She clomped into the kitchen and grabbed a Mason jar off the windowsill. “You go into the fourth meadow down in the valley. The one past the dinosaur tracks.”

  My jaw dropped. “They’re really—” But she was still talking, and I didn’t get the question out.

  “There’s a field ought to be full of rain lilies there, after that storm a couple days ago. Fill this, and bring it back. I never get down so far anymore. My back hurts too much.”

  “Arthritis?” I asked.

  “Old hang gliding accident,” she said, then hooted with laughter at my expression. I wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not.

  “I’ll go call your dad. Get going! It’s gonna be a hot one.”

  I got going. Annie wasn’t at the stream, or in the flower meadow, or in the boulder meadow. The dandelions in the flower field had all been stripped of their fluff, and they looked . . . skeletal.

  The cairns we’d made had started to crumble and fall, and the petals were all dried up and faded.

  It didn’t seem like a good sign. I kept going, unwilling to call out for Annie, in case Doug and Jake were down here again. I didn’t trust them to wait and see if I tattled. They didn’t seem like the type to control their impulses much at all.

  And I didn’t want to break my promise to the valley, either. I’d stay quiet as long as I could.

  Maybe she hadn’t come? But she’d said we were doing something special.

  Then I heard something. It sounded like a dove, more than one. And someone—something else. Crying?

  I walked softly around a large oak and saw
her.

  Annie was seated on the ground, her arms tucked around her legs, shoulders shaking. On each shoulder was a mourning dove, gray and white feathers made even plainer by the red of Annie’s hair.

  I watched for a little bit, until Annie must have felt me there. She looked up, and the birds flew away to perch in the low boughs of the oak.

  “Hey, Annie,” I said. “You all right?”

  It was dumb. She was obviously not all right. But she didn’t make fun of me. She just shook her head.

  “What happened?” I asked, settling next to her. To my surprise, she leaned against me, like she couldn’t hold her own weight up anymore. She pressed against one of my worst bruises, and it hurt, but I wasn’t going to say anything. She seemed as beaten up as I’d been. My story could wait. I let the Mason jar fall with a soft thunk to the earth below.

  “My mom came back for the weekend,” she said after a few seconds.

  “Yeah, you told me.”

  “So I talked to her.” She hiccupped a laugh. “Yelled at her, more like. I told her I didn’t want to start the radiation next week, that I wanted to wait, that maybe there’s some other option. She said there was, actually—a clinical trial thing starting at St. Jude’s in three months—but it wasn’t soon enough.”

  “Not soon enough?”

  “Well, according to her,” Annie said, her voice low and rough. “And all the cancer docs in Houston, it turns out. But everybody knows they can do all sorts of amazing stuff at St. Jude’s. Anyway, I asked her to call my doctor again and let me talk to him. She did, but the jerk wouldn’t even listen to my idea.”

  “Well, if it’s not safe to wait—”

  “Safe?” Annie interrupted. “I’m not safe either way. So why shouldn’t I wait? It’s not going to matter.”

  “It’s not?” I asked after she fell silent. “Won’t the cancer get worse if you wait too long?” I didn’t know much about cancer, but I knew you couldn’t afford to just let it go.

  “Probably,” Annie said, and she sighed deep and long. “I just . . . I wish I could . . . keep going. Like I am now.”

  My mouth was dry, and suddenly every bruise on my body felt new, painful, sharp. What was she saying? I had to ask, make sure I understood her. “You mean, let the cancer grow?” It was almost impossible to get the words out, but this wasn’t the first time she’d said something that made me think . . . I had to know. “You want to . . . die?”

  “No!” Annie said, bursting into motion. She jumped up and started pacing around the space under the oak limbs. The doves flew away in a loud clatter of wings. She’d frightened them. She’d frightened me.

  “No,” she said again, “I don’t want to die. Not at all! But don’t you see, I’m going to anyway?” She pointed to her chest. “What is death, Peter? It’s when you stop being you, right? When that something, that spark or whatever, goes out. And that’s what’s coming for me.”

  “You don’t know that,” I protested. But she cut me off.

  “I know enough. More every time I talk to her.” She meant her mom. “I won’t be me anymore. I won’t be able to think like Annie Blythe, or talk like Annie Blythe, or maybe even dress myself anymore like—” She broke off, sobbing again.

  “Like Annie Blythe,” I finished for her. “But, Annie,” I said, when she’d quieted a bit. “You’ll still be alive. I mean, that’s what’s important, isn’t it?”

  She grabbed herself and went back to rocking on the ground. “You can’t understand. I thought you might, but . . . have you ever had the people around you make a decision for you? One they don’t think you can make, one they won’t trust you to make? Not even the tiniest little part of it? They just tell you what’s going to happen and expect you to fall in line?”

  I thought about moving all the way out here. And then about summer camp. It wasn’t the same, but I knew the feeling. “Sort of,” I said. “Yes.” My throat wanted to close up. “Story of my life right now.”

  Annie paused. “Tell me.”

  So I did. I told her about being grounded, and sneaking out, and the camp my parents were taking me to, and how Doug and Jake had beat me up—and how Mom wouldn’t even listen, didn’t even notice I was beaten. “Oh, Peter,” Annie said, flying over to me and lifting my sleeve. She saw some of the marks there, the small cuts the asphalt had left on my skin. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could have been there. I would have—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “You couldn’t. Those boys are mean and crazy. Annie, they know where you’re staying. You need to lock your door when you’re in the cabin.”

  “I will,” she promised. “But why won’t your parents listen to you?”

  “They don’t even like me, Annie.” My eyes stung, saying it out loud. Even if it was true. “My dad’s been trying to turn me into the kind of son he always wanted since first grade, when I got kicked off the peewee football team for . . .” The corner of my mouth twitched up; I couldn’t help it. “For peeweeing in my uniform every time I got tackled.”

  She fought back a giggle. “Why the big deal? Was your dad a super athlete or something?”

  I sighed. “No. I think that’s the problem. He’s a not-great musician who always wanted to be a star . . . something. Football player, drummer, whatever.”

  “Sounds like he needs therapy.”

  “Ha. That’s what my therapist said,” I muttered. Annie tilted her head.

  “Your therapist? When did you have a therapist?”

  “Uh, never mind.” I wasn’t about to start that conversation. “Leave it at this: My family thinks I’m weird.”

  “Well, you are,” she joked. “But in the very best kind of way. All the greats were considered weird, Peter. All the very brightest—artists, scientists. They were all misunderstood as kids.”

  “Yeah, yeah . . . ” I picked the jar back up. “Let’s walk while we talk. I promised the Colonel’s wife a jar full of rain lilies. Whatever those are.”

  She followed, muttering under her breath. “It’s not right. None of it. What’s happening to you and what’s happening to me—it’s just not fair. We’re not babies. We can make some of the choices, can’t we?”

  “According to my parents, no. And honestly, Annie, my problems aren’t the same as yours. Yours are . . . well, life-threatening.”

  “So are yours, Peter,” she replied, her voice growing darker. “Every time your parents tell you you’re not enough, not enough like them or like they want you to be—you think that doesn’t kill you a little bit? It has to.”

  My eyes stung. She was right. And it was something I’d thought before.

  “Peter?” A hand on my arm stopped me. “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing.” I didn’t want to answer. Then I said, “I am weird, you know.”

  “Weirdly amazing. Come on, Peter. You’re one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.”

  I didn’t turn, didn’t want her to see my eyes.

  What I was thinking was that I knew exactly how she felt about wanting to be who she was. It was the same way I’d felt the year before. When I was being killed a little bit, every day, and no one would listen. Dad had told me in a thousand ways that if I would only stop being the wimp I was—the person I was—my problems would all work out. Mom had signed me up for everything she could, hoping that somehow I would change. I would be better. Different.

  Annie was the first person who had ever told me I was . . . enough.

  “I think you’re incredible. Anybody who can’t see that is . . . well, they just aren’t paying attention.”

  When she said the words paying attention, an enormous blue butterfly flew up in front of my face and landed on my shoulder.

  “See?” Annie said. “Even the valley agrees with me.”

  “You and the valley are the only ones who think so,” I said, wondering at how i
t didn’t seem crazy to think about the valley being alive anymore. Not with Annie, anyway.

  “Don’t you wish there was some way you could get your parents to listen to you?” Annie asked. “Something you could do to get their attention?”

  It was almost exactly what I’d been thinking for two days. Maybe even two years. But nothing had worked—in fact, when they figured out how bad I was feeling, they just went and did stuff to make it worse. I nodded anyway.

  “I know what to do, Peter,” Annie said, rushing to me and grabbing my hands. She peered up into my face. “For you and me. To get my mom’s attention and your mom’s, too. To make them listen. Will you do it with me? I can’t do it alone.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked, feeling my mouth dry again, my heart beat faster and faster.

  “Fish guts,” she whispered, one corner of her mouth quirking up but her eyes deadly serious above the smile. “I’m ready.”

  “Fish guts?” I asked, my mind spinning. Then I remembered. “Wait. You mean . . . ”

  “For real,” she whispered. “Let’s run away.”

  Chapter 22

  Run away . . . for real? With Annie. I wanted to yell “yes!” but my tongue wouldn’t move. She waited.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I said, when I could speak again. I knew we’d been talking about running away, making up lists of what to take, but I’d thought it was just that: all talk. When I’d been thinking about really running away the day before, I hadn’t imagined going with Annie. She was too sick. But I would never tell her that; it seemed disloyal. “Where would we go?”

  “Into the valley,” she said, her eyes shining. “As far away as we can get from houses.”

  “But . . . the valley?” I closed my eyes for a second, imagining myself in the valley, living off the land . . . and knowing it wouldn’t work. Not long term. “It’s big, sure. But not that big. They’d find us. Annie, you know they’d find us, and it would all have been for nothing. We’d just get in trouble.”