Don't Touch (28 page)

I know how much Dad cares about his work. I always loved that about him, that his work was important, noble.

“And the funding, the support, is incredible. You know how you're working to prove yourself, Caddie, at your new school? I'm working to prove myself right now too.”

“You should call us more often,” I say. “If you care.”

“I guess I thought it might make it easier for everybody to get used to the new situation if I weren't calling every day.”

“Or every week?”

He goes quiet again.

“Maybe it made it easier on me,” he says. “Maybe I needed some space, to make this new life here feel real, like mine.”

I think of the night Dad drove away, never telling us where he was going, when or if he'd be back.

He stammers on. “I . . . I should have made more of an effort. I get caught up in work. You know me.”

I do. I know. But it's not an excuse.

“I'm still planning to come see your play.”

“They're going to kick me out for missing rehearsal,” I tell him.

“Oh.” He sounds surprised, and maybe I'm imagining it, but he also sounds disappointed.

“I know you thought giving me the academy was going to make everything a-okay,” I say. “Like that would magically replace you or something.”

“Nobody thinks that,” Dad says.

My face flushes hot and suddenly I need out from under the covers.

“It seems like you've been able to replace Jordan and me with your work just fine.”

“Sweetie, I know you're not so happy with your dad, but you want to give me some kind of a break?”

“Not really,” I say and hang up.

An hour later, Mom sits at the foot of my bed to one side of my legs. Her arm pins me down on the other side, too close. Her weight stretches the quilt tight so my toes point. I'm caught.

“Caddie,” Mom says. “I think we need to check in with Dr. Rice.”

I wriggle under the covers to face away from her.

“Your dad told me what you said, that you're not doing well.”

“I was trying to upset him.”

“Well, you did. He's worried about you.”

If that's even a little bit true, I'll take it.

I twist to face her. “I love how when you two think I have a problem, the first thing you think of is getting me to talk to somebody else about it.”

“Caddie, I've been
trying
to get you to talk to me. Do you want to talk?”

Her jaw's set, eyes sharp. She examines me for signs. It's like we're in a movie about the spread of some zombie plague, and she's looking to see if I'm still her same Caddie.

She smoothes the quilt, pressing it down around me even tighter—it's supposed to be soothing, but I'm blinded by aqua-gold lights again, holding my breath.

“I think I'm going crazy,” I say.

“No,” she says, firm.

“But I was doing so much better. It's so much worse than it ever was.”

“Things have been stressful. You know how that works. Anyone who has a problem with anxiety—when you get stressed, it's going to make it that much worse. I should have anticipated.”

Maybe it's finally talking to Mom, or maybe it's the sadness in her eyes—like that first time I had to go see Dr. Rice, the sadness that something was broken in me that she couldn't fix—but I'm crying and it feels like I might never stop.

I kick at the covers, slide up to sitting, and Mom gives me room.

“I'm afraid I'm not going to get any better.”

“You will. With a little help.”

“I
had
help. I'm supposed to be better. I'm not supposed to
be
like this anymore.”

“Hey,” she says, and there's some of Dad's practicality in her voice. “Life doesn't work that way. If it did, your dad and I would have come to our senses and broken up years ago.”

Would that have been better or worse? Or maybe that's a dumb question. Maybe these things just
are
.

“Why do things have to break?” I say.

“I don't know,” she says. “I don't like it either. Have you ever seen me on a bad cleaning spree?”

I give her a look. Everybody knows how she gets.

“That's my way of coping,” she says. “Some people throw fits. Some people run away. Some people drink. I scour.”

“At least yours is practical,” I say.

She laughs softly. “It's more than a little OCD. I think you get it from me.”

I always thought of myself as having more in common with Dad—his need to control things. His avoidance. Dad tries to control other people. Mom tries to control her environment.

I try to control
everything
by controlling myself.

It's like the things in Mom and Dad that grate against each other met in me. If they couldn't live with each other, how am I supposed to live with myself?

“I'm sorry,” I say to Mom.

“What for?”

I'm not even sure. I'm sorry for being how I am, for making her worry, for not being able to help things between her and Dad, for the dark thoughts I had underwater.

“Can I sleep now?” I say. “I'll go see Dr. Rice, but right now I just want to sleep.”

When I wake to see Peter filling the doorway, at first I'm embarrassed he caught me dreaming about him, which doesn't make sense. If I'm awake, I'm not
dreaming
about Peter at all. Peter's real.

I hate to think how I must look, all pasty and red-eyed. My sleep shirt's medicinal green, and I haven't brushed my hair for days. But Peter doesn't look at me. He sits in the rocking chair by the side of my bed and stares at his boots.

A bunch of flowers hang between his knees. They're warm and cheery colors—red, orange, and yellow for a girl who's feeling blue.

“Your mom said you might be asleep,” he says.

“Sorry.”

“What? No . . . Do you have . . . I don't know . . . a vase?”

I shrug and he sets the flowers on the night table. A few petals fall.

“My mom let you up here?”

He nods. “She said company might do you good. I thought she should warn you, but she said you'd tell me to go away.” He grins and looks me in the eyes for the first time. “Sorry to take you by surprise.”

I don't answer. I can't say it's okay, can't say I don't care, and I don't trust my voice.

“Happy Halloween,” Peter says.

It's actually Halloween. I love Halloween, but I hadn't even realized it was today.

“I heard a crazy story,” he says, “that the strap on your shoe broke, and that's why you fell in the pool.”

“Hmm.” My throat is too tight. If I let one word out, who knows how many might come tumbling after?

“Everybody was watching the flash mob, but I was watching you.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry for wrecking that.”

“Why did you jump in?”

“I didn't jump. I fell.”

“But you let yourself fall.”

I shift on my pillow to face him. “You jumped off a roof.”

He looks toward the door. “That was stupid of me.”

“Are you calling me stupid?”

He almost smiles at that, but he checks himself.

“You were drunk . . .” He trails off. He knows there's more to it than that.

I hold his gaze.

He pulls a flower from the bunch and picks it apart so its orange petals drift to the floor. “You stayed under so long. Did you mean to?”

I look up at the ceiling. Tired as I am, it hurts to hold my face still for so long, to pretend I'm okay when I know that I'm not—it's like holding my breath underwater.

“I don't know,” I say, and I don't like how ripped up and raw my voice sounds. “I don't know what I wanted. I hope I didn't mean to, you know, stop breathing. I just—I had an impulse and it felt right, so I did it. It made me feel free.”

I shut up then, because he's too close. I've already told him too much. The space in my room closes in on itself, filling up with bad feelings and worry, no air.

“You can talk to me,” Peter says, but what he's really saying is,
Let me help you. Please, please, let me in. Let me touch you, squeeze you, press you. Let me breathe all your air.

I love that he came here,
love
that I haven't totally scared him away. But he should be with a girl who can hold his hand, kiss, maybe more. He shouldn't get stuck with my problems.

“I don't think I can explain it,” I say.

Peter pulls the last petals from the stem in his hand and watches them fall to the floor. Any second he'll stand up and leave me alone, let the bubble close up around me again, let me breathe.

He reaches down to pick up a few of the petals and holds them toward me as if he means to press them into my bare hand that lies open on the quilt. I haven't been wearing the gloves to bed. I pull my hand back. “Don't—”

“No, I know,” he says, gentle. Those words make me flood. My heart pumps hard, extra blood heats my face.

He holds the petals in the space between us. “If I promise not to touch, is that okay?” he asks, and his hand doesn't move. I let mine fall open, cupped on the quilt at the edge of the bed. He moves his hand closer to mine, slowly, tentatively, giving me plenty of time to pull away.

I close my hand into a fist and press it down into the mattress, but I stay.

He's almost to me when the words come: “It's scary,” I say. I laugh at myself even though it's not funny. It's safer to laugh than to cry.

Peter pauses but doesn't pull back; he exhales a few little breaths, his own nervous laugh. His hand shakes. My breath catches. The sheets feel like they're on fire, but I still dig my fist into the mattress, fight the impulse to scurry away.

He tilts his head and touches the petals to the back of my hand. Peter considers my hand like he's taking an X-ray of my bones and knows exactly what he'll see.

I unclench my hand, and Peter brushes the petals along my fingers. He's still shaky, but careful and slow. When he reaches my fingertips, I turn my hand up and let him drag the petals down all the joints to my palm. It tickles and twitches so much I have to flex my fingers back, extend to resist squeezing shut.

He traces the lines on my palm—the life line, the love line, the ones of lesser consequence—and I concentrate on relaxing my muscles, letting go, so my hand folds back into a cup.

I take a deep breath, feeling . . . proud, and I meet Peter's eyes. He smiles. Not a grin, but a full smile.

He lets the petals go, lets them fall into my open hand.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Peter waits downstairs while I shower and change.

My whole body feels different under the water. Everything is sharper, more sensitive and alive. It almost hurts, but in a good way—a why-haven't-I-showered-in-four-days way.

I pull on jeans and a top with long sleeves, and I put on my gloves—one scary step at a time, please.

Peter's in the den, checking out Jordan's costume—a mask that fills up with blood when he presses a pump. Next year, Jordan might be too old for trick-or-treating. It almost makes me sad, but I check myself. He has horror movie marathons, visits to haunted houses, and parties, so many parties, in his future. Not every change is sad.

“All better?” Jordan asks me.

“Working on it.”

“I thought maybe you caught some kind of sleeping sickness, like from a mosquito.”

“No such luck,” I say.

“I'm not kidding. I was worried about you.” Jordan looks a little offended.

“I'm sorry I made you worry.”

“You ready to get out of here?” Peter asks.

“Yeah, I guess I'm feeling brave.”

I can't fix everything all at once, but there's one important thing I need to fix as soon as possible, maybe even tonight. As Peter pulls out of the driveway, I confess, “I think I've been a bad friend to Mandy.”

“She'll forgive you,” he says, “once she understands.”

But how to make her understand? Peter seems to accept my fear without needing to ask a lot of questions, but Mandy will want to know a clear reason why. I remember how she talked about Peter's “nuttiness” after I first met him. I can't bring that up to Peter, obviously, but it makes me worry that Mandy might shun me now that I've let my crazy show.

Peter parks at the top of Mandy's drive, and we walk in and out of the cones of harsh area light that surround Mandy's house. At the pool, we find Mandy and Drew on lounge chairs.

Mandy's up like a shot with her arms spread dramatically as if to block me from leaping in. “Step
away
from the pool,” she says like an agent in a cop show. “Swimming season is over.”

“I'm done swimming,” I say.

She relaxes her arms, takes a drag on her cigarette, and considers me. She doesn't look angry but poised—at any moment she could shift into attack mode. She turns to Peter and says, “This is my surprise?” He responds by walking around to take Mandy's seat next to Drew.

“Can we talk?” I ask, and Mandy shifts her pursed lips to the side. She's not going to make this easy.

“You want something to drink?
Non
-alcoholic.”

“No, thanks. I'm good.” She leads the way to the upper lawn, removed enough from the pool that Peter and Drew won't be able to hear us.

I perch on the edge of the trampoline, but Mandy chooses the grass.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

Mandy nods.

My words spill out in a rush, things I've waited too long to say. “I'm sorry I freaked out. I'm sorry I haven't been a good friend. I've been keeping things from you, and I haven't been able to talk about why, and that sucks. And I'm sorry I missed rehearsal and messed up your scene. I'm sorry I'm interrupting your . . . date, or whatever, right now.”