“That’s not breakfast, Allie.”
“Well, you’re not here to care, are you? So shut up already.”
“What are we doing today?” she asks to silence the clamoring of the guilt.
He leans across the table and kisses her. “I have an idea,” he says, holding her gaze.
“Tell me.”
“It’s a surprise. Let’s go.”
Excitement and expectation rise unexpectedly to the top of her grief, and she catches herself looking forward to whatever he’s got planned.
Today’s ride is short, though, and ends in the parking lot of a run-down motel. When Ethan kills the engine, her heart sinks and she doesn’t get off the bike.
This is what she wants, she reminds herself. When Ethan saved her from school the very first time, she’d been ready to have sex. Now, she’s in love with him. Over the last week, he’s been her everything. But this motel, the pavement full of cracks and potholes and trash, the faded sign, feel like discordant music.
Ethan takes off his helmet. Gets off the bike. Allie sits still, swallowing down something that tastes like disappointment.
“Here?”
“Does where matter?” He bends down and kisses her. His lips warm hers, ignite a heat low in her belly that spreads out into the rest of her body until all of her skin is awakened and her brain shuts off its arguing.
“I want you,” he whispers, his lips tracing a line of pleasure from her ear to her collarbone. Allie lets him take her hand and lead her into the office. It smells of old cigarettes and body odor and dry rot. The clerk’s eyes take liberties with Allie’s face and body, making her uneasy, but Ethan puts an arm around her waist and pulls her close against him. He pays cash. The man gives them a key.
Immediately inside the room, before she can get too good of a look at the shabby walls and the dirty carpet, Ethan’s lips are on hers again, urgent, his hands warm under her shirt. Allie lets herself go. Closes her eyes to the dismal room. Breathes in the scent of Ethan. Tunes out the stink of mildew and despair. This moment, she tells herself, this is the only moment she has and the only one that matters.
There is an unexpected awkwardness about clothes, but once that’s over, she immerses herself in the pleasure of full-body skin contact, the way her senses light up and block out memories and grief and even the dull meaninglessness she’s come to accept as comfort. When he rolls on top of her, she wants to tell him to wait, but words seem far away and she says nothing.
She doesn’t know what to expect, is surprised by the pain when he enters her, the deep ache where she had expected only deeper pleasure.
And then, with a few thrusts of his hips, and a hoarse “Oh God,” he collapses on top of her, breathing hard, his face buried in her shoulder. Allie waits for something else to happen, her body still all lit up in expectation and need, but he rolls off her and she realizes it’s done. Over.
This big event, the act her friends whisper and giggle over, the thing all of the boys have been angling for, is a meaningless nothing. Tears well up behind her eyes, and she blinks them back, embarrassed suddenly by the wetness between her legs, shivering in the cold where Ethan’s body had warmed her. She reaches for the sheet and pulls it up to cover her nakedness.
Ethan rolls on his side and strokes the side of her face, tucks her hair behind her ear. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers. “That was amazing.”
Allie smiles, because that seems expected, but says nothing.
Ethan rolls onto his back, stares up at the ceiling. “La petite mort.”
“What?”
“La petite mort. The little death. That’s what the French call an orgasm.”
There’s nothing to say to this, so Allie says nothing. She has never felt so empty, so lost. If she still had her phone, she might slip into the bathroom right now and text Steph, but she has no phone, and Ethan doesn’t have one to borrow.
She wants the cello more than anything.
Always, she has made sense of her world through music. When she was a little girl, it was the notes her father played that sorted her emotions. When she was five, she could see colors in the music, could watch it carry away the black and the harsh red, bring out her favorite hues—the vibrant blues and purples and greens—sometimes a pure, bright yellow, the color of happiness.
Ever since she learned to play her first song, the cello has been her refuge. And now she doesn’t deserve that comfort ever again.
“Do you ever think about it?” Ethan asks, propping his head up on one elbow so he can gaze down into her eyes.
“About what?” She’s lost the track of his words, distracted by the memory of music.
“Death. Dying.”
She searches his face, trying to find the meaning she’s missed without admitting she hasn’t been listening, but he doesn’t seem to require an answer.
“You and I both know that life is pretty meaningless, right? There are a few moments—like this one, being here with you, riding the motorcycle—that are worth being alive for. But most of it is pointless. So I wonder, sometimes, if the French were on to something.”
“French fries?” Allie asks, trying to shift this mood away from a precipice she sees coming and isn’t ready for. Her body is trembling with reaction. She needs to pee, but she doesn’t want to be naked in front of him anymore. She feels—that’s the problem. She feels everything and nothing.
Her old life, her old self, seem like tangible objects she should be able to reach out and touch. That self, the old Allie, would not be having this conversation. Wouldn’t be here, in this room, in this bed, having regrets about unprotected sex and wondering when was the last time these sheets were washed. Her old self would be disgusted and frightened and revolted, and crazy in love with Ethan all at the same time.
She can’t feel any of these things. It’s like they’re behind glass in a museum. What she does feel is something different. Recklessness. Anger. Resentment. And a loss so overarching that she only touches a single point of it. Like she’s a tiny speck trying to encompass the vastness of the entire universe.
Ethan rolls away from her onto his back again. “If the little death is so amazing and transcendent, then maybe we’re completely wrong about the real death. Maybe it’s not something to fear and hate, but the ultimate experience.”
Or, Allie thinks, if death is anything like what just didn’t happen here, maybe it’s not even an event. More like an afterthought. Life is like the buildup, all of the expectations and sensations and anticipation, and then all of the juice goes out of everything, and pffffft. You’re flat.
“Too bad nobody ever comes back to tell us,” she says.
“Oh, I think they try. My dad’s ghost hangs around the house. But he can’t speak. I tried the Ouija board once, but all that came through was garbled nonsense.”
“Maybe because he shot himself in the head,” Allie says. She meant to think it, but the words come out of her mouth somehow.
To her surprise, Ethan laughs. “Brain scrambled in life stays scrambled in death? That’s a good one. This is what I love about you, Allie. Nobody else would say a thing like that. But you get it.”
Allie notes that he doesn’t say he loves her, not quite. But still the words warm her, just a little, enough to ease her shaking.
Ethan rolls over and kneels, straddling her hips. She doesn’t want to do it again. Not now. Not here.
“Die with me,” he says.
Allie stares up at him, mesmerized by his dark eyes. She’s not sure what he means. Probably the whole petite mort thing, because without any warning, he thrusts into her again. This time it really hurts, she isn’t ready, she should have told him to wear a condom and, oh God, she really, deeply, wants her mother.
This time, when he rolls off, she gets out of bed, gathers up her clothes, and scuttles into the bathroom. It hurts to pee and there’s some blood. Normal, she tells herself. Normal for the first time, but she’s worried about staining her underwear. How much blo
od is normal? If there’s more, what if it soaks through her jeans?
The bathroom is definitely not clean. Bits of fuzz and hair are visible in the corners. Allie closes her eyes against tears, but they leak out, anyway, and she covers her mouth with her hands to silence her sobs. She stays there until Ethan calls after her.
“Allie?”
“Out in a minute.” She washes between her legs with a washcloth that seems to be clean enough. Splashes cold water over her face. Puts on her clothes.
When she walks out of the bathroom, Ethan is dressed.
He meets her in the middle of the room, puts his arms around her, and pulls her close, just holding her, smoothing her hair.
“We—this—was meant to be. Think about what I asked, Allie. We could die together. There’s nobody I’d rather take with me on that adventure.”
“What exactly are you thinking?”
“Romeo and Juliet.”
Allie hears Steph’s voice in her head. “That is, like, the stupidest play ever written. I don’t believe Shakespeare had anything to do with it. Killing yourself over a boy. Seriously?”
“I don’t . . . ,” Allie starts, but doesn’t finish. Because the idea of death is growing on her. Not because of Ethan, but because she can’t get her mind around the world she is living in now. The one where she might as well be a murderer. The one without music in it. The one where she doesn’t have a kick-ass GPA and isn’t going to college and can’t connect with her best friend. The one where the father she once adored is a slacker who didn’t love her enough to be there when she needed him.
“Pills,” Ethan is saying. “I don’t see why it needs to be painful or messy. I’m thinking we take the pills, and then we make love. Or we make love, and then take the pills. And then we drift into the next great adventure together.”
“What if it’s not an awesome adventure?” Allie asks. “What if there’s really a hell and we go there?”
What if my mother and my brother are waiting to get revenge on me? She doesn’t say this, but the very idea starts her shaking again. What if her mother were to start haunting her, the way Ethan says his father does? What words would show up then on the Ouija board? Allie doesn’t want to know.
“Can’t be much worse than what we’re leaving here, I figure. You don’t have to decide now, this minute.” He kisses her, his lips so much gentler now. “Shall I take you back?”
Allie shakes her head. She feels like where she has been and what she has been doing is written all over her, and she doesn’t want her father to see.
“Let’s do something fun.”
“This was fun,” he teases.
“Some other fun thing. There’s a party tonight at Paige’s house. Take me there.”
Ethan tilts her chin up so she has to look him in the eyes. “You know her parents will be out? What kind of party it’s going to be?”
“That’s why I want to go.”
“You don’t strike me like a party girl.”
“I’ve never been to a party. Never even been invited. That’s why I want to go. What if I love parties so much I don’t want to die? It’s research.”
He laughs. “Everybody should get thoroughly blitzed at least once in a lifetime. All right. But that’s hours away. What now?”
Allie shrugs. “The mall? I don’t care.”
She feels like she’s been given a reprieve. She can’t come to the conclusion until all of the facts are in.
But when she’s settled on the motorcycle, her arms around Ethan’s waist, he turns to look at her before starting the engine.
“Don’t wait too long, okay? I’m going, one day soon. With or without you.”
Even once they are moving, weaving in and out of traffic at a pace that tempts death to take them now, the words ring in her ears.
With or without you.
Without Ethan, what does she have left?
Chapter Thirteen
BRADEN
Braden walks a mile to the QFC, reciting the list in his head, over and over like a mantra to block out the call of the one thing capable of drowning the clamoring memories. The store isn’t crowded, and he moves easily down the aisles, marking items off his mental list. Gets through the checkout line without incident.
All the while, he’s exquisitely aware of the liquor section in the same way he always knows the location of the cello at the house. He refuses to look, to even glance in that direction, but he knows the booze is up front. It has its own section, its own cash register. Much less risky than the Safeway, where he’d be likely to run into a bottle of whiskey on his way to the peanut butter.
The checker scans his purchases like an automaton. She looks weary, dark circles under her eyes, and Braden wonders what her story is. He dredges up a smile for her, tells her thank you. She glances up at that, briefly, and he wishes he’d left well enough alone. There’s a deadness to her, a hopelessness, that makes him wonder how many bottles she’s got stashed away.
Maybe she needs an adventure.
The thought comes with a flash of Phee’s face, the light in her eyes, her smile. Right. The Angels meeting is this afternoon, and he has not even thought about an adventure. Well, no doubt this woman needs something good in her life, but he’s not the guy who can give it to her.
He picks up his grocery bags, distributing the weight for the long walk home. Almost done. Almost there. His eyes betray him, straying from the straight and narrow, skimming over the bottles of Washington wines and seeking the whiskey.
Keep on moving, Braden. There’s nothing to see here.
His feet slow, then detour. A man can look, as long as he doesn’t touch. He’s just browsing. But he can taste it now, can almost feel the reprieve it offers. A smoothing of his rough edges, a numbing of his raw nerves, a space to forget his memories and his guilt.
Again, he thinks of Phee, remembers the Adventure Angels contract, but it all seems distant now, a small blip on his consciousness compared to the whiskey that has always been there for him. It won’t hurt to pick up a bottle, just to hold it.
It doesn’t hurt at all.
When he walks out of the store five minutes later, his bags are heavier by the weight of one bottle of whiskey. It’s just a security bottle, in case the pain gets overwhelming. He’ll put it away somewhere and not touch it until Allie turns eighteen. He doesn’t have to drink it.
What’s six months?
All the way home, he tells himself this fairy tale, almost laughing at the way he believes his own bullshit. Denial is his superpower. He should wear a cape with a giant D on it, standing for Denial Man, or maybe just Dumb Fuck.
His denial dissolves before he’s halfway home. Who is he kidding? Of course he’s going to drink. What Allie doesn’t know won’t hurt her. He’ll ration it out, make it last. This time will be different. Other people can drink and be functional, why can’t he? His steps quicken in anticipation of that first swallow, always so much more amazing after a period of dryness.
But when he reaches the house, there’s a teenager sitting on the porch.
She could be pretty, if it weren’t for the distraction of the nose ring, the eyebrow rings, the harshness of the black eyeliner that fades the impact of her brown eyes. She was at the funeral, glued to Allie’s side.
They stare at each other in silence, and he’s aware she’s making judgments about his appearance just as surely as he is about hers.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” he says.
“I’m Allie’s friend. Steph. Her best friend.”
“And what can I do for you, Allie’s best friend Steph?”
He wonders, if she’s Allie’s best friend, why isn’t she with Allie? He doesn’t ask. He wants her to go away, let him escape into the house and settle in with his own best friend.
Steph levels an accusing glare at him. “Where is she? Allie?” The subtext is clear. What have you done with her?
“Excuse me,” Braden says, making a detour around her and putting hi
s key in the lock, his actions belying the politeness of the words. He hopes she’ll take the hint and leave him alone.
But Steph gets up, stretches like a cat, and follows him into the house.
“She’s at school. Where I’m guessing you should be,” he says.
“School’s out. And she wasn’t there.” Steph stops dead at the edge of the amoeba-shaped red stain on the carpet. “Oh my God! Did you kill her?”
She edges backward toward the door, her fingers fumbling with her phone, her eyes wide and alarmed.
“Hey, hold up. It’s a wine stain. Cabernet. Turning Leaf, I believe. You can ask Allie.”
He sets the grocery bags on the counter. The whiskey makes a satisfying little thump. He gets out a glass. He’ll drink like a human being instead of a bum. One glass. That’s all. He’ll savor it. Slowly.
“I can’t ask her when I can’t find her.” Steph isn’t entirely convinced, but at least she hasn’t called 911 yet. “I can’t ask her anything. She won’t answer my texts.”
“Have you tried actually calling her? Like, using the phone to talk on?” He pulls the chicken out of the bag, starts to put it in the fridge, but hesitates. Maybe he should start dinner first, before he opens the bottle. That way he can relax, enjoy the drink, feel virtuous over completing his parental duties.
Also, if he’s honest, so he doesn’t forget about dinner if he should decide to have more than one glass.
Steph interrupts his musing. “Yes, I’ve tried calling her. I’ve called. I’ve texted. I’ve Facebooked and Snapchatted. I even e-mailed. This isn’t normal!”
Braden takes a breath, flattens his hands on the counter, thinks longingly of the bottle still in the bag. Alarms are going off all over inside his head. If Allie is shutting out her best friend, too, the problem is bigger than he’d thought.
“I don’t imagine things are normal for her right now,” he says carefully.
“Last text I heard from her, she said she was with you. That was, like, a whole week ago! Allie doesn’t lie. So what have you done with her?”
Everything You Are: A Novel Page 10