738 Days: A Novel (6 page)

It’s a shallow, suffocating kind of comfort, the sameness of my room. It’s a memorial to the Amanda who was and who, I’m beginning to think, never will be again.

The closet beckons, offering a soothing dark corner, a door to draw shut on the world, eliminating all chance of being surprised, scared, or taken. Eliminating all chance of living, too.

I take a few steps deeper into my room to stand across from the partially open sliding door. Tags on my new clothes, purchased by my mother over the last year and a half, flutter in the breeze from the ceiling fan. I can’t wear them, the clothes. They’re all bright and happy, with snappy colors and stripes, crisp sleeves and hems. Some of them are even short-sleeved. More evidence of my mother’s fierce—and possibly delusional—belief that I will, one day, be “okay.”

I hate the reminder they provide of my weakness, my inability to progress past the point where fear controls my every decision.

I have plans, things I want to do with a future I once thought I would never have. But none of that matters if I can’t get this under control.

“Amanda, are you going to hurt yourself?” my mom asks through my bedroom door, startling me. Her voice holds a forced sternness, and I can hear the quiver of uncertainty in it. Someone has told her to take this approach. “I need you to tell me what you’re planning,” she says.

“No, I’m fine,” I manage. “I just need a minute.”

Which is both true and not true. I am most definitely not fine, though I don’t have any intention of taking pills or cutting my wrists or whatever this random expert has warned her of. I don’t need to. I’m contemplating crawling into a closet to hide; what life is there to end?

“I’m calling Dr. Knaussen,” she says, her footsteps fading away.

But I already know what Dr. Knaussen will say. She’ll call it a setback—such a nice, tidy term to represent a messy spillage of emotions and chaos. Normal in the recovery process, expected even, when encountering a surprise trigger, like Chase-freaking-Henry at my job.

Why was he even here? Two years ago, after the television interview and all those articles where his name was thrown around, that would have made sense. But now?

It doesn’t matter. If it weren’t him, it would have been something else eventually. The fear is endless, and I can’t seem to break free.

It takes only a few seconds to shove all my shoes down to the other end of the closet, making room for myself to the sound of my tears landing on the hardwood floor with quiet splats.

And the moment my back is tucked against the corner, miserable relief spreads through me, instantaneous and enormous, like a giant splinter removed from my whole body. I don’t even have to pull the door closed. This time.

I press my fist to my mouth and scream silently against my skin.

Because this is not the setback Dr. Knaussen would like me to believe it is; that would imply forward progress at some point. It’s been two years, and I’ve stalled out, seemingly for good. This is just my life. And I don’t know what to do, how to make it better.

Even worse, I’m not sure it
can
be made better.

*   *   *

I wake, my neck stiff and aching. The room outside my closet is blue with twilight. I must have fallen asleep, though I don’t remember dozing off.

My fingers clutch at my left wrist automatically, confirming that I’m still free. It’s a compulsion, an OCD-like tic, to check my arm first thing, every time I wake up. It started when I was in the hospital and the nightmares were so vivid, I couldn’t always tell what was real.

As always, my skin is bare but for the cuff of my shirt and the scar from the band that held my chain.

My face is sticky with dried tears, and my knees are aching from my cramped position.

Experimentally, I stretch my legs out toward the heap of shoes on the other end, the muscles releasing reluctantly in a sea of pins and needles.

In a fit of frustration, I kick at the offending pile of footwear. Hiding in the closet is just one step too far, moving from “pretty understandable response to trauma” to “batshit crazy.”

Sighing, I tip my head back, the coolness of the drywall soothing through my hair.

“… never would have happened, Claire, if you hadn’t let her take that job.”

I lift my head up. That’s my dad’s voice. My mom must have called him at his office. He sounds pissed. Crap.

“No,” my mom says sharply, “it was the television interview that started all of this … but if you were more involved—”

“Don’t blame me,” Liza snaps. “Dr. Shapiro recommended it. And it worked exactly as planned … got the press off the front lawn. I didn’t know they would run with the Chase Henry bullet point…”

Oh God. They’re fighting again.

I lean sideways, peering out from the closet. My bedroom door is now open. Someone has been in to check on me. But there’s no one here now.

The voices sound like they’re coming from downstairs. The kitchen, probably.

“It’s not my fault! Just because I wanted to get a job. Most parents would be thrilled!” That’s definitely Mia. I can hear her clearly enough. People in the next county can hear her clearly enough.

I groan. I need to get down there, reassure them that I’m all right. But I don’t feel any strong motivation to leave the safety of my homemade hidey-hole. The panic has passed, for the moment. My heartbeat has slowed into the range of normal, and the driving beat of impending doom has receded. Finally.

Then the doorbell rings. I hear hurrying footsteps, probably Mia’s, then the distinctive creak of the front door opening. Another voice, one I don’t recognize, speaks, the tone low and calm. Male, definitely, but I can’t catch his words.

I sit up straighter. Who’s here now? Maybe Mr. Logan from the store, checking on me? How embarrassing.

Reluctantly, I crawl out.

I stand up carefully in my room, my legs shaky and tingling from the lack of blood flow. Behind me, I can feel the closet’s tentacles pulling at me, like the tar strands clinging to the bottom of our flip-flops in the parking lot for the community pool on all those hot August days.

But I make my way out of my room and into the hall, heading for the stairs, expecting to find my family gathered in the kitchen, or if there’s a guest, maybe the living room.

Instead, in a repeat of earlier today, they’re gathered at the base of the stairs in the foyer. Only this time, it’s not just my mom and sisters, but my dad as well. And they’re not facing off against each other, but standing in a single line of solidarity—Mia, Mom, Dad, and Liza—which is … unusual.

Then I see the only other person present.

Their seeming opponent—the mutual enemy that has drawn them all together—is one guy, standing with his back against the door, his head ducked down, the brighter gold bits in his dark blond hair glinting in the foyer light, and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans.

Chase Henry.

My breath catches in my chest, and I wait for the panic bees to swarm up and start stinging.

But my insides are strangely calm. My heart does a quick little skip, but that’s all. Instead, I feel that weird flicker of … what?

Connection, maybe. Which is ridiculous because this Chase Henry is not “my” Chase Henry, for lack of a better term. I know that.

He doesn’t look as he did in the poster or my memory. He is taller than I imagined. I can’t see much of his face, just the left side of his profile, which is mostly in shadow anyway, but he seems tired, older. There are lines by his mouth, as if he’s been unhappy lately or spent a lot of time frowning.

He’s wearing a battered work jacket over his T-shirt now. Nothing like the slick leather coat he wore in the poster and, therefore, in the room with me.

And yet, I can’t shake that feeling of a link, a bond, when I look at him. And with it, the odd sensation of being able to breathe deeper, like part of me was somehow waiting for this and can now relax a little.

Also a completely ridiculous notion. But this one sort of makes sense, in a crazy way. Chase, my version of him, was my security blanket. I needed him, a representative of home and the hope I was too afraid to allow myself (again, according to therapists galore), so my brain created him.

The real Chase in the foyer below physically resembles the protector I created so I’m reacting to him in the same way.

As if sensing my scrutiny, Chase looks up at me, those familiar dark blue eyes taking me in.

The impulse to move away shoots through me and vanishes almost as quickly. I hold my ground, wrapping my fingers around the banister at the top of the stairs, staring down at him as he stares up at me. A long beat and then another passes.

“Why did you even let him in?” Liza demands of Mia loudly. She is leaning around my parents to glare at Mia. But there are bright pink spots of color in Liza’s cheeks, just beneath the dark frames of her glasses. My normally unflappable sister is … flapped. Then again, she’s the one who had Chase Henry on her bedroom wall for years.

“I wanted to hear what he had to say for himself.” Mia lifts her chin defiantly.

“Mia,” my dad says sharply.

“Dad,”
she says in a mocking tone, knowing that he’ll do absolutely nothing to scold her. She’s always been his favorite.

“Shhh!” My mother stretches her arms out, one toward Mia and the other toward my dad, like a crossing guard. As if that would somehow stop the sound from carrying or end the argument.

Chase turns toward me slightly, catching my attention again. He pulls his hands from his pockets and holds them out in front of him, as if showing me that he means no harm. I appreciate the gesture, if nothing else.

“I shouldn’t have just shown up like that today, at your work,” he says slowly. “It was a stupid idea, and I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t think it through.”

One by one, almost in order—Mia, my mom, my dad, and Liza—their heads snap around, their mouths falling open when they see me.

“Amanda, go back to your room,” my dad says, avoiding my gaze. He can’t look at me anymore. Not for long. “You don’t have to listen to this.”

“We should call the police,” Liza says, even as she folds her arms across her chest and makes no move toward the phone.

“Amanda can decide for herself what she can handle,” my mom says pointedly to my dad. “We just need to—”

“Oh, here we go again.” Mia throws her hands up in the air.

I ignore them all and focus on Chase. “Why are you here?”

Chase’s mouth tightens, deepening the lines on either side of it. “I wanted to apologize personally. I didn’t realize—”

“No, I mean, why now?” I ask. “Why come to Springfield?”

He takes a deep breath and rubs the back of his neck, then lets his hand fall to his side.

“I don’t know how much you know about me,” he says. “About what happened. The show I was on was cancelled a couple of years ago.”

“Good riddance,” Liza muttered. “Zombies?”

“It started falling apart, and I kind of got screwed up in the middle of all of it,” Chase admits. “Made some mistakes, got into some trouble.”

My dad straightens at that, seeming to loom larger, which is pretty impressive considering he already stands six foot five. About five inches taller than Chase, from the look of it.

“I’m clear of that now,” Chase says quickly, red splotches appearing high on his cheekbones. “But I’m having issues with booking work. I love what I do, but my reputation is…” He sighs. “It doesn’t matter. Someone I trusted suggested that the publicity from a photo op with Amanda and maybe a set visit for a few days on the movie we’re filming over in Wescott—”

“Like one of those celebrity charity visits for sick kids?” Liza asks in disbelief.

“They’re making a movie in Wescott?” Mia asks, perking up a little.

Chase doesn’t seem to know who to respond to. “Uh, yeah, it’s just a small independent…” He shakes his head. “It’s not important. The point is, I was wrong to listen to that person. I was just…”

Desperate. He was desperate. I can see it written across his face and hear it in the gaps between his words. I recognize the expression, that feeling of your back against the wall, and not in the safe-in-the-closet kind of way.

“I was wrong,” he finishes, his expression grim. “And I’ve fired her. So it won’t happen again.”

“You didn’t think my daughter had been exploited enough?” my dad asks in that deceptively mild voice I recognize as the calm before the storm.

“Mark,” my mom snaps. “Not in front of Amanda.” She glances at me worriedly, as Mia gives a loud huff of exasperation, which is met with another glare from Liza.

I remember the five of us in the kitchen on a Sunday morning, my dad goofily dancing around with each of us in turn, while my mom made pancakes. Mia was little, maybe eight, and barely able to keep up, but she was laughing like a crazy person. Then we all were when my dad grabbed my mom, pulling her away from the griddle and scattering Bisquick everywhere as he spun her around like they were ballroom dancers.

Now, just a few years later, I am actively destroying my family, setting them against one another, without even trying.

“Yes, sir. That’s why I wanted to apologize in person,” Chase says to my dad wearily, with just a hint of defiance … and an accent? Does he have a drawl? I never imagined that. “It was a shit … it was a horrible idea. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just going to go.” But he pauses as he turns to the door and glances up at me.

“Amanda.” He tips his head at me in a faint nod, his jaw tight. Then his hand is on the front door, pulling it open.

Most of the time, the
big
moments in life sneak up on you; it’s only in hindsight that you recognize them as significant. When Jonathon Jakes asked me to help him look for his lost dog, my only concern at the moment was whether I could do it and still get home in time to beat Mia to the last cup of Easy Mac in the pantry. My conscience won that battle, to my eternal regret, and clearly, Mia got that cup of Easy Mac.

But this time, it’s different. I can feel it, that discordant clanging inside of me. In a few seconds, maybe less, Chase Henry, the real version of my imagined security blanket, will walk out that door and down the steps, gone forever, and that just seems
wrong
. Powerfully wrong. If I don’t do something right now, I know I’ll regret it, even if I don’t know why.