Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (31 page)

107. One Final Postcard

I’ve received a handful of postcards from my father with Bible verses on them. Some were psalms that were cheery and hopeful. Others made me think. I have the stack of them bound by a rubber band.

The latest one shows a sculpture of a lion in front of the Art Institute of Chicago. I’ve seen the lions before while visiting the museum with a class.

On the back is a simple note.

Chris—I know you told me on the phone that graduation wasn’t important. I still wish I’d been there. Your gift is waiting back home.

I can’t wait to see you both.

Remember Luke 12:8–9. I take this as encouragement to speak up for what I believe. To be a light.

Love you.
Dad

I find my Bible and look up the verses.

I tell you the truth, everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, the Son of Man will also acknowledge in the presence of God’s angels. But anyone who denies me here on earth will be denied before God’s angels.

I read it, then read it again.

Somehow I don’t take it as encouragement.

Somehow it feels more like a warning or a threat.

I guess I think this way because I know myself. Because I don’t know exactly what I’d do if forced to reveal what I believe.

Especially if it would hurt the people I love the most in this world.

108. Going Away for Good

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

I want to convince Kelsey that nothing is wrong, but everything in life that is wrong weighs me down. I wonder if this will be the last time I’ll sit with her in her family room on this couch. Or if I’ll ever be in this house again.

Or if I’ll ever sit next to her again.

The clouds that are normally blown away by Kelsey’s brightness are immovable this evening. She knows it too.

“I told you that I’m coming back late on Monday night,” she says. “I’ll be here before you leave.”

I nod, already knowing that.

“Chris?”

“Yeah.”

“Talk to me. Are you still worried—about everything?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. I know it is. I know you, Chris. You’ll figure it out.”

I can only laugh about that. I’ll figure it out. Yeah, right. I’ve been trying to figure out things since I first set foot in this awful place.

“That’s funny,” I say.

“Why?”

I think for a minute. “You know—when I came here, I didn’t really know who I was. I didn’t have much of a personality. But being on my own and dealing with this—this craziness—helped me. It’s like I’ve had several different personalities. But I think that’s the only way I could have found me. You know?”

She nods. And yeah, I think Kelsey does know.

But she doesn’t know this blanket of burden thrown over my head. All this shaking worry buried deep inside of me.

“I just wish that this feeling—all this stuff I worry about—all this hurt—I just wish it would go away once and for all.”

Kelsey leans into me and holds my hands. “We all hurt in our own way. You know I—I’ve been around these people most of my life. And most of them don’t have a clue who I am. That’s why—when I saw you and met you—I thought that I had a chance.”

“A chance for what?”

“To be someone different. And that’s why—that’s why I’ve been the one who’s chased after you.”

“You really have, haven’t you?” I say.

“That’s not me. At all. But I just thought—I didn’t want to wake up the same Kelsey as I had been every other day in my life.”

“I like that Kelsey.”

“I always thought—if someone took the time—if someone just actually took the time and I wasn’t so stinking quiet and shy—that they could like this person, this—me.”

“I’m glad nobody else knows. That makes it even more special.”

“Does it?” Kelsey asks.

I nod. “You’re special. And you’re not like the others. That’s a good thing.”

“You’re not like the others either,” Kelsey says. “That’s why you’re going to be okay. Why things are going to work out just fine. I know they will.”

I breathe a little lighter sitting next to her.

I worry a little less.

The hurt inside seems to go away. Just for a short while.

I move and kiss her and try to bury everything even further.

Maybe with enough time and enough kisses, the hurt will go away for good.

109. Rabbit Hole

Maybe this is what my story is all about. A guy being the hero. A guy finding his fate. A kid suddenly growing up and finding out something about life.

Something awful.

I want to run away, but I’m forced to be here.

Inside this hole.

I don’t want to go there.

I don’t want to go underground.

I don’t want to see the black or the grays or the haze or the blurry mess.

I can feel my heart beating and waiting and wondering.

Wondering what will happen and who will make it out alive and who will die. I know death is inevitable, and I can feel its breath against the back of my neck like some horror movie. Like the horror movie that’s been playing out for the past twenty months.

Twenty months of this nonsense.

Twenty months of insanity.

I will finally figure it out, won’t I? To see if the girl stays with me or ends up as another sacrifice. To see if my family stays intact or splinters into ashes.

I’m tired.

I still want answers.

I just wonder if the world will listen and if it will even care what’s happening in this sweet little tranquil town called Solitary. Where the blood flows and the water pours and the endless madness never ever stops.

I want to run away, but I can’t.

I have to stay here and fight.

There’s the hole I need to go down.

Right now.

Right this instant.

This boy is about to turn into a man, and this might be the first and last glimpse of what he finally could and should be.

110. Something I Should’ve Done

It’s the middle of the day on Friday when I receive a text from Kelsey.

Taking off. Will call or text later tonight if I can.

This makes me feel a little less worried. Now, if only Mom makes it home on her last day of work. Then I’ll scratch that off the good old “To Do and To Keep Alive” list.

This little bout of ease remains short-lived, however, because someone comes barging in the door, causing me to jump up off the couch.

It’s Uncle Robert. A messy and hungover Uncle Robert.

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s at work,” I say.

He just looks around for a moment. He’s breathing heavily like he’s been running, and I see his hands moving, balling into fists as if he’s squeezing something.

“When’s she getting back?”

“Tonight. She said maybe nine.”

Uncle Robert curses, looking around as if someone else might be in here, then he takes a note out of his back pocket and unfolds it. He tosses it on the coffee table.

“Make sure she gets that, okay?”

I nod as he bolts up the stairs and heads to my room. In a few minutes, he comes back down carrying a handgun. It’s a short, stubby black gun that I think is a Glock. I’ve seen enough of those on television to recognize it.

“Did you get that upstairs?” I ask.

I remember the gun I found but ultimately lost.

That gun could’ve come in handy.

“I had a hiding spot in the bedroom. No way you could have found it.”

“Was it in the closet?”

He only shakes his head. He stuffs the gun in the back of his pants. For a minute, he just scans the place.

“What’s going on?”

Uncle Robert sees the key belonging to the bike parked outside. His old motorcycle. He picks it up.

“Wanna know why I got that bike?” he asks, holding the keychain. “Ever see the movie
The Great Escape
?”

I shake my head.

“See it one day. It’s a classic. About a bunch of prisoners in World War II trying to escape a Nazi camp. It’s got Steve McQueen in it. The role was legendary.”

I suddenly remember Brick wanting to buy the bike from me and mentioning Steve McQueen.

“I got that bike when everything—when I was busy being a hero. I was trying to be like the Cooler King.”

“The what?”

He chuckles, lost in his thoughts. “Captain Virgil Hilts. Nicknamed the Cooler King. That’s the role Steve McQueen played. I wanted to be cool and reckless like him. Brave and fearless and always with a funny quip. And for a while I was. But now I know that all of that—the stuff of trying to save Heidi—it was all just one big role. I was just acting the part. Because in the end I wasn’t Hilts. I was just Robert Kinner. A man doomed because of his last name. A man who wants to escape everything in his life.”

I want to do something for this man who’s twice as old but even more terrified than I am. “Do you want me to—”

“No,” he says. “I’m fine. Everything is just—just right where it belongs.”

He laughs as if he just made a joke, and I shake my head, not understanding.

“What if all the world you used to know is an elaborate dream? Good question, huh? That’s the only Bible I’ve been reading. The only verses that make sense to me. The King Reznor Bible. Full of hopelessness and despair.”

Uncle Robert tosses the key on the table next to the note. Then he looks at me with a serious, heavy glance. “You’re a good kid, Chris. Don’t let that part of you go away. Protect it. Okay?”

He goes to the door and opens it.

“Uncle Robert?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you going?”

He looks at me, smiles and nods, then shuts the door behind him.

It takes me about ten minutes to decide to open the letter.

Maybe it should’ve taken less time. Or maybe I shouldn’t be opening it at all. But I’m worried that Uncle Robert is going to do something stupid. Or that he’s truly running away once and for all.

I open up the letter and see his messy handwriting. It’s actually worse than mine.

Dear Tara,

I’m sorry for not being there. When we were younger and now. It’s messed with me more than you can possibly know.

I’m sorry I didn’t do more.

But I’m finally going to do something I should’ve done a long time ago.

Robert

He’s finally going to do something. But what?

I think of his gun and his comments about escaping. About playing the part. About trying to rescue Heidi.

Suddenly I realize that’s what he’s going to do.

He’s going to try and save Heidi.

No.

I swipe the key to the motorcycle in my hand and then tear open the door to get out.

Maybe I can still help.

Maybe I can make sure Uncle Robert doesn’t do something really stupid.

111. Fixed

I’m heading to the only place that Uncle Robert could have gone. Wondering why he didn’t go there a week or a month or a year ago.

I wonder why he no longer drives the motorcycle he got in order to escape. Or why he left his cabin with all his music and T-shirts behind.

He wanted to escape, but the wind whipping around makes me think that maybe it’s not Solitary he’s wanting to escape.

Maybe it’s the guy he used to be.

A hundred songs that I never would have discovered play in my head as I wonder if the track list for Uncle Robert has changed. What happened, and why?

A girl.

Maybe.

I turn a corner.

Maybe it’s because of her.

I turn another corner.

Maybe it’s because of Heidi.

Maybe it’s because he turned a corner one day somewhere and came across someone who changed his life.

I can understand.

And now he’s trying to finally deal with the situation in his own way.

Like you did, right?

Like I tried.

I head down the street to Pastor Marsh’s, thinking of Jocelyn.

Waiting too long.

I race down, thinking of Lily.

Not knowing enough.

I hold my breath as I approach and see the silver Nissan Xterra and know I’m right, and I can’t help thinking of Kelsey.

Holding on to hope that she’s far away.

My head is spinning and I’m feeling heavy and I don’t want to go in there. ’Cause the thing is that I’ve arrived in time and I know enough and I still carry hope in my back pocket.

But will it matter?

Uncle Robert, what are you going to do?

If he kills Marsh, will I be punished in some awful way?

I open the door and hear shouting and cursing.

Uncle Robert is saying stuff that doesn’t quite fit or make sense. He’s using a name I’ve never heard. Not Marsh, but something else. I don’t get it.

Jerry Turner? Who is Jerry Turner
?

Then I see them: Uncle Robert with his gun aimed at Marsh. The pastor looks composed and silent standing there by the table.

“Hello, Chris,” he says with a grin.

Robert turns around and doesn’t seem to believe that I’m standing there.

“Stay out of this,” he tells me.

“Don’t,” I tell him.

“Don’t what? Aim a gun at this monster? I know what you’ve done.” He hurls more curses at Marsh.

Marsh moves a little closer, and Robert tells him to stop. Bringing his hands up, Marsh seems to find all of this … amusing.

Yet even as he smiles, I see his eyes seem to have grown dimmer. Thinner.

Why am I nervous, when Uncle Robert is the one holding the gun?

“You disappoint me,” Marsh says.

“You’re a sick freak, that’s what you are.”

“The Bible says marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”

“Shut up.” Uncle Robert’s hand shakes as he holds the gun.

“I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of their ways.”

“Told you to shut your mouth.”

“What?” Marsh asks. “Don’t want little nephew to hear about the uncle’s indiscretions?”

“Where is she?”

“Secrets and lies. That’s the only thing that goes on in this town.
Secrets. And lies
.”

The way he says those last few words makes my skin crawl.

“Heidi!”

“She’s somewhere meeting you,” Marsh says. “She doesn’t know that her supposed one true love—this loser stuck in the past, stuck in the memory of his long-lost parents—she doesn’t know that the man she thinks she should be with is really a dead man.”

“Where is she?” Uncle Robert moves closer, pointing the gun at Marsh’s head.

“Meeting you to run away. That’s what your note said, right? Only, well, she thinks you’re meeting her by the old barn. But no. Not today. She’ll come back home and find out what happened to you, and then once I pick her up off the ground I’ll have my way with her like I always have.”

Marsh laughs, and I hear a click. Then another click and another and another.

The gun is a toy gun.

No. Not a toy gun. There are just no bullets.

Or something’s not right.

Marsh keeps laughing.

“What’d you do?” Robert says.

“I fixed it. Just like I fix things. Like my parents. Like your silly stupid cabin. And like that silly stupid wife you’re in love with.”

Uncle Robert starts to rush at the pastor, but Marsh moves like a snake over to a drawer and opens it. Now the pastor is holding a gun too

no not again not now

and he’s smiling and forcing Uncle Robert to back up.

“Do you remember when you first met Heidi?” Marsh asks. “When you wanted her more than anything in this life? Or the next?”

Uncle Robert curses and glares at Pastor Marsh. I can tell he’s unafraid.

“So tell me,
Robert.
Tell me something. Tell me before I wipe the floor with the messy bloody body that is yours. Will you stand by her now? Will you walk through the fire?”

Marsh grits his teeth and looks like some deranged animal. The gun goes off once and twice and again.

I close my eyes and scream. Because I know I’m next.

I’m still screaming when my eyes open.

I’m holding my hands over my head, and I’m kneeling on the floor only feet away from Uncle Robert.

Marsh looks at me.

Uncle Robert is dead.

I’m trying not to look at him, but I can’t help it. I’m crying and screaming, and Marsh comes over to me and sticks the gun to my temple.

“You ignorant little mouse. What are you trying to do? Huh?”

He rams the hot barrel into my forehead.

“All of you Kinners are the same. Stupid. Just dumb. Dumb dumb. And I’d get rid of you all, every one, if I didn’t know better. But I do know better, Chris. I know well.”

He shoves me back and then tells me to get up.

“You’re going to go back home, and you’re going to do nothing. You’re going to say nothing. You’re just going to wait until the clock strikes the right time, and you’ll show up to your great-grandfather’s ceremony, where you’ll renounce God and be given the gift. The magic, the key—whatever it might be. You’re going to play the part, you got that?”

Marsh wipes away spit from his lips.

“I’ll tell you why you should get it. Because of sweet and darling little sunflower. Your little friend. Nobody is going to know that she didn’t arrive in Columbia this weekend. Until, of course, it’s too late. Until, of course, you make sure that she’s fine. Right?”

“What’d you do …” is all I can come up with.

I feel like someone trying to talk at the end of a marathon.

“You do what I tell you to do and you’ll be fine. Do you understand? I killed your fool of an uncle just because I felt like it, and your little Kelsey can be next.”

I wipe my eyes and cheeks. I’m terrified.

“Go on, little boy. Look at you. So young and so scared. After all this … you’re still just a little boy. It’s pathetic.”

I start to say something but a haunting, raging “Go!” sends me on my way.

I get on my bike and take off down the road as tears stream sideways off my face.

That’s when I see the Mercedes SUV drive past with the movie star hidden behind shades at the wheel.

I know one more thing.

I won’t be the only one here bleeding with tears.