Crash (2 page)

From inside a girl's voice said, “Leave me alone.”

Ozzie barked more loudly, but I muzzled him with my chilly hands. “Be good.”

I watched as the zipper on the tent slowly opened. A hand popped out first and then a head. Long straggly hair and the frightened face of girl. Real frightened. “Leave me alone,” she repeated. She looked at me and then stared at Ozzie.

“Ozzie won't hurt you,” I said. But she wasn't convinced. She popped back into the tent. Then she unzipped it all the way and jumped out. She was wearing a man's winter coat. Whoever this girl was, I was thinking, she must be crazy. Maybe totally flipped out on drugs. She turned her back to me and started to hastily knock down the tent.

“Just stay back,” she said, brushing the snow off the flimsy tent. She stuffed it into one of those big rolling suitcases.

“Hey, I'm sorry,” I said. “Look, I'm not the police or anything. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was just out walking. Ozzie got curious.”

The whole tent was in her suitcase. Like she'd done this manic breaking camp before. “What are you doing sleeping out here, anyway?” I asked.

She looked me in the eye for the first time. I could still read the fear. But I couldn't help noticing her green eyes. How pretty they were. “It was just a dare,” she said. “I was just camping.”

“Wow,” I said. “I guess you won that bet.”

She started to walk away, towing that suitcase behind her. “Wait,” I said, following her. I really wanted the whole story. I wanted to know about the girl who camped out in January in the freezing cold, all alone.

“Leave me alone,” she said. And there was no denying that she meant it. You could tell she'd said it to others many times before.

For some reason, I felt like I needed to talk to this weird, crazy girl more than anything else on this crazy first day of the year. I tapped Ozzie. He understood. He pranced toward the girl and nuzzled her hand. At first she waved him off, but then he did it a second time. She petted him this time but still kept walking. I was following behind, and I watched as Ozzie gently bumped into her with his nose.

The girl stopped. She petted him. I hung back for a second. Then I cleared my throat and spoke. “It's friggin' cold out here. I don't live far away. Why don't you come back with me and warm up for a bit?”

She continued to pet Ozzie but didn't look up.

“I'll cook you breakfast,” I said. “I suck at cooking, but I can do eggs.”

She shook her head.

“Hey,” I said. “I don't know who you are, but you look really cold. I'm freezing my ass here too, and I don't even want to go home. You wanna hear about my morning? I wake up, and my father says he's moving away to find work. Then my mom tells me she's about to shack up with one of my dad's old buddies, who is a certified scumbag.” I paused and took a swallow of that cold, hard air. “So do you want to walk away, or do you want to come join me in my nightmare?”

I guess it was the way I delivered that last line that brought her around. She looked at me with those green eyes again. And she let slip a hint of a smile.

Chapter Four

I didn't know what I was going to say to my mom. But I really didn't care what she thought. We walked slowly against a cold north wind, Ozzie prancing beside us. I tried to help the girl with her suitcase, but she tugged it back.

My mom's car was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief. On the kitchen table was a note.
Gone to Nick's. Will call you later.
Everything will work out okay. I promise.
Love, Mom
. I showed it to the girl. She read it, and I saw a look of sadness come over her face. Then I crumpled up the note and threw it across the room.

“I'm Cameron,” I said. “You've already met Ozzie. Welcome to my humble abode.” I don't know where that line came from.

She pulled her hood down. “I'm Mackenzie. Some people call me Mac.” The name Mac didn't fit her at all. Her cheeks were red from the cold. Mine probably were too. Her hair was long and tangled. I was beginning to think it wasn't just her eyes that were pretty. The girl was cute. She took off the big winter coat, and I saw she had another jacket and a hoodie on under it. It was definitely the layered look. “Got any coffee?” she blurted out suddenly.

I laughed. “Sure.” I boiled some water and made her a cup of instant coffee. She watched intently but didn't say a word. Then she seemed to relax. And suddenly the world didn't seem to be such a hateful place.

I tried asking her about herself but mostly got one-word answers. It was clear that she'd had a rough life. She didn't come out and say it, but I was getting the feeling that she was on her own. Really on her own. I scrambled some eggs, burned some toast and made more coffee. She ate like a horse and drank three cups of coffee.

I could tell she was happy to be inside and warm, and I tried to make her feel at home. After she'd finished eating, she fed some scraps of toast and bits of egg to Ozzie and then just sat with him on the kitchen floor. I'd often said Ozzie was a bit of a babe magnet, but this was different. I really didn't know what to make of her. But then, my life was down the toilet, so all I could think was that it was great to have some company.

Sometime around noon, I heard a vehicle pull up. It was Nick's big-ass truck. Mackenzie stood up as if she was about to run, but I told her to stay put.

You can picture the scene. Mom and Nick walked in, saw the girl with the long tangled hair. Ozzie growled at Nick. Mom growled at me.

Against my protests, Mackenzie slowly put on her coats and inched her suitcase toward the door while Nick stared at her like he was looking at a criminal. My mom was going off on a tirade about not being able to “trust” me, which seemed kind of screwy, considering what she had been up to. I told her so. Nick tried to wade into it, and I told him to shut up.

“I'll just wait outside,” Mac said politely.

“Don't go anywhere,” I said. “Please.”

She smiled. “I won't,” she said. I could understand why she didn't want to be part of our family dispute, and it was just as well that she left, because I started sharing my disrespectful thoughts about Nick and my mom. It was not the most polite conversation. It was clear that my mom had come back for some of her things and was going to be staying with Nick.

“Cameron,” Nick said, trying to contain himself. “If you're going to be living at my house, you'll have to be more respectful to your mother.”

It wasn't exactly a warm invitation. And it wasn't anything I wanted to hear, anyway. “Bite me,” I told him in a cool, level voice.

And then it was over. My mom was crying, and Nick was trying to hold his temper, and then they were back in his truck and driving off.

When I went outside to get Mackenzie, she was nowhere to be found. I had no idea where to find her, and I felt more alone than ever.

I went back in and sat on the kitchen floor where Mackenzie had been sitting. I leaned over and hugged Ozzie. Then I fell into some kind of black hole. I didn't see anything in the days ahead worth living for. Living with Nick? No way. Going back to school? Bleak and boring. I guess I sat there on the floor for a long time. And then I was pissed off at myself. Mostly for letting the girl walk out of my house and losing her.

“Let's go find her,” I said to Ozzie.

Now, it's not like Ozzie is some great tracking dog or anything. He's just a dog who understands my feelings, and he knew what needed to be done. So we went for a walk. I was really bundled up this time, ready for the worst, and I had Ozzie's leash. I didn't know how far we might have to go. I mean, how far could a girl roll a big suitcase in a city full of snow?

The answer to that question was “far.” I don't know how we did it, but finally, after me following as Ozzie led, there she was, sitting in a rundown coffee shop downtown. I took a chance and went in with the dog. I got looks, but no one said anything. Mackenzie was asleep at one of the tables, and Ozzie nudged her awake.

“How'd you find me?”

I pointed to Oz. “He likes you,” I said. What I wanted to say was that I liked her. I needed a friend. And I was getting the picture. I guess I'd had it from the start. Mackenzie was no extreme-sport teenage winter camper. “You look tired,” I said.

“I am tired.”

“Things didn't go so well with Mom and her boyfriend.”

“Been there. Done that,” she said. “You weren't kidding when you invited me into your nightmare.”

“Well, yeah. I guess you got the picture that we aren't one big happy family. Too bad my dad wasn't there to express his thoughts about Nick and Mom.”

“Adults have their problems.”

“So I've noticed. But here's the thing. My mom wants to stay with Nick. Nick doesn't really want me around. And he wants nothing to do with Ozzie. In fact, Mom wants me to give Ozzie away.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm not giving Ozzie away.”

Mackenzie gave me the soft smile I'd seen only once before. “Good for you.”

“But what I'm leading up to is this. You need a place to stay. I'm freaking out there, being by myself with all the weird stuff happening in my life.” I took a deep gulp. “So come stay with me.”

I don't think she saw this coming. Hell, I didn't see it coming. The words just kind of leaped out. She sat there in silent shock. I kept talking. “My dad is gone, and I'm not going to let Mom or Nick run my life. I'm sixteen, and they dumped all this crap on me. Wasn't my fault. So as far as I see it, I'm on my own. And none of them are going to boot me out of my own house.”

“But who owns the house?”

“The landlord. It's rented. But he doesn't know what's going on. So I think I'm okay there. Come stay as long as you like.”

“I can't do that,” she said. “I've been down this road too many times before.”

“Where are you going to stay, then?”

“I've got options.”

“Yeah, but they must not be great options if I found you holed up in a tent in the park for New Year's Eve.”

“Like I said, it was a dare.”

I smiled but didn't call her a liar. “Let's go,” I said. Ozzie wagged his tail, and that seemed to do the trick.

It was dark now as we walked through the silent city. It felt like it was about to snow again. We were quiet at first. I was wondering why I was doing this. I knew nothing about this girl I'd found in a tent. Then she broke the silence.

“If I'm going to stay with you, you've got to go along with my rules.”

Rules were the farthest thing from my mind. “What kind of rules?”

“My rules. Like you need to leave me alone when I need to be left alone.”

“I'm okay with that.”

“And just 'cause I'm in your house, it doesn't mean you own me.”

I nodded. I had a good idea of what she was talking about.

“And if I go out to do some stuff on my own, you can't always be bugging me, asking questions. You can't be my father.”

“Of course not.”

“And you're not my boyfriend.”

I shrugged.

“And we need to be kind and respectful to each other.”

That one caught me off guard. I had been thinking of Mackenzie as tough and streetwise. But this was something different. “Of course,” I said. “What else?”

“That's it.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. The truth was, I was more than a little scared. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had no idea how the next few weeks of my life were going to unfold. All I knew was that Mackenzie was walking beside me, spelling out her rules. And she was going to be staying at my house. And that I wasn't quite so alone anymore.

Chapter Five

I settled Mackenzie into the spare bedroom and showed her around the house. “You sure it's okay for me to stay here?” she asked. I could tell she thought it was too good to be true and that she wasn't used to anyone being nice to her. The house wasn't anything special, but I guess it was a castle compared to a pup tent in the park and wherever else she'd been crashing.

“Consider this your home. You can stay here as long as I'm here. And I'm not planning on going anywhere.”

She smiled a soft, sad smile and headed off to the bathroom to take a shower. An hour later, she showed up in the kitchen. I almost thought she was a different person. “You clean up real nice,” I said with a fake southern accent. It was some line I'd heard in a movie.

Mackenzie blushed and said, “Thanks. I haven't felt this good in a long time.”

I found a frozen pizza in the freezer and baked it for us. It wasn't very good, but she seemed to really enjoy it. I kept waiting for her to share her story, even bits of her life. But she didn't. She got uncomfortable when I asked questions.

“I have to go back to school tomorrow,” I said. “Can you take care of Ozzie while I'm gone? Let him out and keep him company?”

“Sure. For some reason I didn't think you were still in school.”

“Yeah. I am. It mostly sucks. But I don't have a clue what else to do with my life.”

“I dropped out last fall. I found it didn't quite fit in with my lifestyle.”

I couldn't help but laugh at her putting it that way. “Your lifestyle?”

“Don't make fun of me.”

“Sorry.” She was sensitive. “It's got to be tough out there.”

“Yeah, it is tough
out there
. I was couch surfing, crashing with some okay people and then some not-so-okay people. Showing up at school looking…well, you saw me.”

I nodded. She was introducing me to a world I knew nothing about. “So you dropped out?”

“I didn't want to. Like you, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. I guess all I really want to do right now is survive.”