All We Left Behind (29 page)

There's only one way to fix this. But I can't give him that grenade. No one's allowed to have that part of me.

*  *  *

I get in my car and drive. Drive away from Kurt's house. From his arms. From his skin.

Away.

Away from what knowing too much of me brings.

I roll down all the car's windows and the cab turns into a whipping air-tunnel of night and hair. It slashes around me uncaged. And I need this wildness out of me. I need to believe I'm not this person, this mean and angry girl, lashing out.

Kurt is all wrong for me. He's been wrong from the beginning. No one starts a relationship half-naked and crying. Not like on the ridge. That's not how anything important is supposed to start. Love stories begin with daydreams and wishes, and sweet kisses on the back of your hand. Not mud. Not sand.

I press the gas, and black trees streak past. Too close. I need someone else. Someone whose touch doesn't dissolve into rose hips and beach peas and feet drowned in the sand. Of course Kurt wakes those things. How could he not? Our
first kiss was on the ridge, with his hands in my hair, wanting nothing but to take things from me, and force—

I hit a pothole and my car swerves. Metal rattles and the weight of this threatens to swallow me. My knuckles grip. I smell burned rubber and my instincts kick in, realigning the tires between the double yellows and the white.

I drive, trees blurring on both sides of me. Hair blocking my vision.

I need to believe that skin can be skin and nothing else. That skin can be silent, and not wake with memories that pull me into their current to drown. I need to believe there is another side of this, where you can have a relationship with someone who doesn't need to get that close to you. That there can be clean slates, and apple trees, and beginning again.

So, I drive.

Because there's only one person who's supposed to be my Prince Charming. One person who will release the bad magic. The person who knows me. The person I can trust. The one who started all this as my friend, and liked me because I was smart, not because of my pretty blond hair.

So, I drive.

And I don't stop until I'm at Abe's house.

My trophies are dark above
the desk. I sit on the bed and pull my guitar onto my lap. Shadows fall over the neck and the maple wood sticks to my thigh. Everything in this room is small.

The window.

The bed.

Me.

I keep seeing Marion's eyes slicing through me, red and wet and—

Nasty.

Like Mom's.

Like she was pissed at me for—I don't know—being here. For not letting her out that door. For seeing her at all.

This
wasn't
about Mom. And fuck her for thinking it was. Only there was no air in this room, and there still isn't. And I don't know how to get any of them to stay.

Isn't it
enough
that she doesn't have to tell me why she
sobs like that? Isn't it
enough
that I'll be here for her no matter what? That I love her. That—

My chest hitches, air caught.

I pluck one string on my guitar and wish I hadn't. The note fills up the empty room, and it's hard to breathe.

But I keep plucking that one string anyway.

G and—

G and—

G.

Because it hurts.

But the quiet hurts more.

“Who was that girl?”

I look up and Josie is standing in the doorway. I pull the sheet up over my guitar and legs.

“Well, I'll be damned,” she says, smiling and showing off that empty space where her tooth is missing. “Good for you, little brother.”

Her voice is so warm, she almost sounds like herself again.

“It wasn't like that,” I say, swallowing back the ache in my chest. How good it was. How it's gone.

“You like her, huh?”

The brightness of Josie's voice echoes through the room with everything else I can't hold on to. I look down at the guitar in my lap—an awkward lump under the sheet. Shapeless and too large.

Josie leans against my door frame and I want to tell her about Marion. I want to tell her that I don't just
like
this girl. I want Josie to sit at the end of my bed and listen, with that toothless grin on her face. I don't want to explain it. I just want—

The phone rings. Not mine, but the house phone in the kitchen.

Josie jolts up, pushing herself off the door frame and toward the kitchen with an energy I didn't know that she had.

What's she—?

I move out of instinct, tossing my guitar to the side and pulling on my pants.

The ringing has stopped and I find Josie in the kitchen with Mom's phone cord wrapped around her. Receiver up to her mouth.

“Tina? Yeah, hey!” She coughs into the receiver.

“Who's Tina?” I ask, but this crazy smile spreads over her face like she just won the lottery.

“Yeah, yeah. Hold on,” Josie says into the phone, finding a pen and scribbling an address on the inside of her arm. I try to sneak a look, but Josie holds a finger up telling me to wait. She listens to whatever the person on the line is saying. “Kurt.” Josie caps a hand over the receiver. “You have a car, right?”

“For what?”

“To meet.” She nods to the phone.

“Meet who?”

“My friend.”

“Who's going to give you
what
?”

That slap-happy grin falls from her face so fast you'd think I killed a puppy. What the hell is up with this day? First Marion, now Josie? All I want is to walk out of this damn kitchen and forget them. Only Marion broke something in me, and I can't ignore this.

“All right, slow down,” I say, her sad face cutting into me. “Give me the phone. Let me talk to them.” She hands me the receiver and her fingers feel like twigs. “Who is this?” I demand, untangling Josie from the cord, and there's a silence on the other end that makes me squirm. “Hello?”

“Josie?” The voice is female and far away.

“Who is this? And why are you calling my sister?”

“Is she all right?”

“What would you know about it?”

“Probably more than you,” the girl says bluntly, and I don't like it. “Can you put her back on the phone?”

“No. How about you tell me who you are and what's going on?”

“Kurt!” Josie snaps at me. “She's an old friend.”

“Hi, old friend,” I say way too snarky, but I want to cut through the shit. “What are you going to give my sister?”

“Fuck you, Kurt!” Josie tries to grab the phone but
I won't let her have it. She gives up after a second and throws her hands in the air. “You think all I need is you and Dad and to be locked up in this hellhole? You think
this
is a life?! Don't delude yourself into thinking that just because I'm home I won't slit my wrists or hang myself in the shower!”

I feel like I've been kicked in the gut. Josie rolls her eyes like I should have seen that coming.

“God, Kurt, there's a hundred ways to check out of here that have nothing to do with Mom's truck.”

“You wouldn't do that.”

“Wouldn't I?” That angry, dead-eyed Josie is back. “Give me one good reason not to.”

My gut's in my throat. This isn't happening. Not after—

“You wouldn't do that to Dad and me,” I choke out, but the glare in her eyes says otherwise.

“Right,” she says, that eerie hoarseness returning to her voice. “After he kicked me out. After you did—what? When have you ever cared about me, Kurt?”

“I, I—” I rack my brain, and it horrifies me when I can't think of something to say. My mind is spinning, and this is happening too fast. It's possible I didn't do enough, but I didn't do
nothing.
“You were gone,” I say, but the words feel so damn small.

“No, I wasn't.” Her eyes get glassy. “
Mom
was gone, not me. You were so ready to save Mom. But you didn't give a
shit when I needed you, Kurt! Dad checked out, but God, you didn't have to go with him.”

“I am
not
like Dad.”

Josie shakes her head. “You're exactly like Dad,” she says quietly.

“I'm
nothing
like—” But my lip trembles and I don't want to see it. The cord to the phone is wrapped so tight around my arm, my hand is red.

“Can I talk to my friend?” She nods at the phone.

I lift the receiver, not sure if anyone's still on the other end. “Hello?” I say into it, feeling like Marion and Josie's bloody punching bag. “Hello? Tina?” I ask again, but the following silence is so big I don't want to tell my sister her friend's not there.

“Yeah, hi,” the small voice says, and it's stupid how relieved I am to hear it.

“Tina?” I grip the phone.

“I'm still here.” Her voice sounds like an arrow shot through all the dark. I don't know who this person is, or what she knows about my sister, but I can see the desperation in Josie. Her skin is gray, dried up with lesions that all the lotion in the world can't make smooth again, and her eyes are scared, like if we don't do this—

She's got nothing left.

When Josie lived here, I heard her crying on the other side of that wall. Crying every night. And I ignored it.

I can't do that again.

“Give me one good reason to trust you,” I say into the phone. “I lost my sister once. I don't want to lose her again.” Something warms in Josie's expression, but that alone isn't going to make me okay with this. In fact, I haven't a clue what this Tina person could possibly say that will make me want to take Josie to see her.

“I saved your sister's life,” the voice says. “Twice.”

Except maybe that.

Abe's father answers the door.
He isn't in uniform but the cruiser sits in the driveway. His mustache is trimmed and even though he's in civilian clothes his presence is impressive.

“Marion?” He gives me the cop squint.

“Hi, Mr. Doyle. I, um . . .” I cough and wipe my chin. “Is Abe home?”

He stares at me a second, like he's trained to do that, to wait for a confession. I tuck my hair back and he straightens the left side of his mustache with his thumb.

“Abe's up in his room,” he says, stepping back. “Would you like to come in?”

“No.” I ignore the warm lights of the hallway. I don't want to remember Abe's house from before, the sweet balsam of the wood furniture, or the flannel blanket over the love seat. I want this to reinvent myself.

“I can wait here,” I say. “If you don't mind sending him down.”

He straightens the other side of his mustache.

“Are you all right?”

I look to the forest. Somewhere in the trees I can hear branches fencing with the wind, their thin gray fingers grasping against the air.

“Of course, sir,” I say, pulling away the strands of hair that stick to my face. “If this is a bad time I can—”

“No.” He checks his watch. “I'll get him.” But he doesn't move, eyeing me instead. “Please.” He motions to the hallway again. “You're not wearing a coat.”

I look down and he's right. My arms are covered in goose bumps and all I'm wearing is a thin T-shirt with no bra underneath. I pull my hair forward to cover my chest and step into the foyer.

“Thank you,” I say, and Mr. Doyle closes the door. The warmth covers my arms and I breathe in, remembering this house and its rustic smell of wool and soap.

“Would you like a hot drink?” he asks as I cross my arms.

“No, thank you, sir. I'll wait here.”

“There's hot tea in the kitchen.”

“I'm fine.”

He hesitates, looking me over again, before heading for the stairs.

“I'll get Abe.”

I nod and wait, hearing his footsteps on the second landing. I imagine Abe up in his bedroom doing homework on
his plaid comforter. The same comforter that lay under us two years ago when our relationship changed from apples and dandelion wishes to something more physical.

I can do this, be with Abe. I'm supposed to be with him. He was always the one. Everything will be different with him. It has to be.

The fireplace in the living room snaps, shooting a cough of ash against the grate. The warmth of Abe's house is suffocating. What if being with Abe isn't different? What if I really am this girl, lost and on fire, and full of darkness?

I hear footsteps on the floorboards above.
What
am I doing here? I can't just show up on Abe's doorstep and expect him to fall into my arms and want me. That's insane.

I shouldn't be here.

I turn and walk out the door.

I invite the invisibility and the wind as my hair tangles everywhere, over my face and neck. There's wildness inside me, reckless as the cold outside.