Into the Darkness (28 page)

“I don’t have a local newspaper, so just tell me.”

I described the little to-do between Shayne’s sister and me at Shayne’s house after our boat ride, how Shayne had behaved at dinner, and how he had reacted to my not wanting to go to Mel Quinn’s house party.

“I had no doubt what that would have led to if I had gone with him,” I said. “He changed dramatically when he saw that I wasn’t going to be talked into it.”

“Impatient sort, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but now that’s not the worst of it,” I said, and described the stories Shayne’s sister was spreading and how other girls in my class were reacting. He nodded, looking very serious. I half-expected he would brush it all off as young-girl nonsense or something.

“And you’re not sure how to handle it?”

“Well, it is a little new for me to be the center of everyone’s excitement, especially under these circumstances. However, I think I’m handling it well enough for a novice. I made it very clear to everyone who called that nothing like Wendi described happened between me and Shayne and never will now.”

He shook his head.

“What?”

“Remember, ‘the lady doth protest too much, methinks’?”

“
Hamlet
. So?”

“Guilty people seem to protest more, because innocent people can’t imagine anyone thinking they did it. Anyway, in this particular situation, I would advise you to go the opposite direction.”

“Opposite direction? What do you mean?”

“Just hear me out,” he said. “Tell them it’s really all true, only you’re the one who decided to break it up because he was a big disappointment in bed. I’m sure you can get a little descriptive and very convincing if you have to. The more detail you give about the sex or lack of it, the more they will believe you.”

“What?” I asked, this time smiling. “Why would I do such a thing?”

“First, from what you’re telling me now, I don’t think this guy could handle it. He’d get his sister off you and run the other way as quickly as he could. Second, your clacking girlfriends would stop treating you as if you were the fool.”

I started to shake my head.

“You can do it, Amber.”

I sat back, my arms behind me, my hands flat on the floor, and thought. Then I laughed, imagining the reactions. “I think I could,” I said.

“Sure you could. You’ll be surprised how much respect you’ll gain. Death to Prudence Perfect.”

“Yes.” I paused. “I don’t remember telling you that some of my classmates call me that.”

“You must have,” he said, but he looked sorry he had said it. Had he been following me without my knowing and overheard Ellie and Charlotte Watts? “Regardless, if you do what I suggest, you’ll be happier.”

I thought for a moment and shook my head. “No. I think I’d rather my parents heard that I was still Prudence Perfect.”

“Your parents don’t have to live out there with these nasty creeps. Besides, something tells me your mother will realize what you’re doing.”

“How can you say that? You’ve never met her.”

“Yes, I have.”

“When? How?”

“Through you,” he said. “You didn’t turn out to be this great all on your own.” I shook my head and smiled at him. Then I looked around the tiny cabin.

“You can’t stay here, Brayden. You can’t be serious. There’s no running water, for one thing.”

“I found a spring nearby, and I have a few bottles of that water.”

“You don’t have any real food.”

“Thoreau had very little.”

“It could get cold in the early morning.”

“The sleeping bag is quite adequate. I’ve done it before and in much more challenging climates.”

“It’s a little claustrophobic,” I said, looking around.

“It’s big enough for me. I have a lot of thinking to do, anyway. Good place for it.”

I looked at him suspiciously.

“What?”

“Where’s your cell phone? I never see you carrying one. If you did stay here, wouldn’t you need one in case your father called you?”

“You’re right.”

He reached into the box and produced a cell phone.

“I didn’t see you had that before.”

“You’re right. I didn’t. I didn’t even want it now, but my father insisted I have it.”

“I was wondering why you never gave me your cell-phone number. Or your house phone number, for that matter.”

“We haven’t had a phone installed yet. My mother has a cell phone.”

“Oh. So?”

“So what?”

“What’s your number?”

“Oh. I forgot. Wait a minute,” he said, and searched the phone. Then he gave me the number. He flipped the phone closed.

“Don’t you want to know mine?” I asked.

“Oh, right.”

I rattled off both my cell and home numbers. He put them in his cell phone and put it in the box.

“Did you get to see your mother?”

“Yes. She was under some medication, so it wasn’t much of a visit, and from what I understood, she’ll be relatively out of it for a few days.”

I sat forward. “What exactly happened that made her decide to check herself in?”

He stared at me a moment and then turned away. He was silent so long I thought he was unable to speak. I was sorry I had asked.

“Brayden? Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said. He looked at me a moment and then added, “I lied to you. I’m sorry.”

“Lied? About what?”

“About my mother.”

“That’s okay. You’re going through so much. How did you lie?”

“I’ll tell you, but I don’t want you telling anyone else, not even your parents. I know how close you are with them and how difficult it will be to hold back anything, but for now, I need you to do that.” He fixed his soft, now warm eyes on me. “I think I can trust you more.”

“Yes, of course you can. My mother and father would understand. They know how important it is to keep someone’s confidence.”

“Yes, I thought they would,” he said, smiling. “The only thing . . .”

“What?”

“I hate bringing you into all of this any deeper than you already are. It’s not fair to lay such a burden on you. You’re struggling with your own personal and important issues right now. You don’t need a new neighbor to unload his troubles on your shoulders, too.”

“Let me be the judge of what I can bear and what I can’t,” I said. “Don’t you start treating me like someone fragile and weak, too.”

He smiled again. “I thought you would say something like that. You’re right, of course.”

“So?”

I felt myself tighten inside in anticipation. Maybe I was being a little overconfident. Maybe I had been too protected all these years, and now that I was swimming alone in the ocean of human conflicts, especially the more mature ones, I would turn and swim quickly in the opposite direction and rush home to my secure little
world. The way his face turned even more serious, his eyes darkening, frightened me a little more than I cared to reveal.

“She didn’t check herself in, exactly. My father brought her to the clinic.”

“Your father was here?”

“Just in time.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mother tried to commit suicide,” he said. For me, it was like a clap of thunder in the log cabin.

“How?” I barely managed to get out.

“She deliberately took too many sleeping pills.”

“I didn’t see or hear any ambulance.”

“There wasn’t any. My father rushed her to the hospital himself. It happened late last night. After she was stabilized, he brought her to the clinic.”

“And then you returned to get some of her things, and that was when you came over to see me?”

“Yes.”

“Then this all happened last night after we took a walk?”

“As I said, late.”

“Your father was home when we took the walk?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you it all as it really happened when I came to see you. I didn’t want to disturb you any more than you were, but I see now that you’re the sort of person who deserves nothing less than the truth. I don’t like
being dishonest with you,” he added, his beautiful eyes fixed on mine.

All of a sudden, I felt terrible about what I had done, sneaking into his house and snooping. If anyone was being dishonest here, it was little old Prudence Perfect. I couldn’t hold his gaze. I looked away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did I upset you with this news as I feared I would?”

I shook my head as the tears came into my eyes. “I did a terrible thing this morning soon after you came to see me.”

“Oh?”

“I went over to tell you that I would be happy to go with you to the clinic, even drive you. I knocked and knocked on your front door. I didn’t believe you had gone that quickly. Besides, I didn’t see any car. I guessed you would call for a taxi, but I was hoping you were still home. I thought you might be upstairs, so I tried the front door, and it opened. I shouted for you, and then . . .”

“And then?”

“I went into your house.”

“I see.”

“I still thought you might be there, upstairs, and perhaps you hadn’t heard me calling.”

“So, you went upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I went up to the attic, to your mother’s art studio.”

“And you saw her painting?”

“Yes.”

“I wish you hadn’t.”

“So do I,” I said. “It was nothing like her artwork on the Internet.”

“No, it wouldn’t be. I don’t know if she’ll ever paint like that again.”

“What is it supposed to be? I don’t understand.”

“It’s the way she sees everything now. Just imagine if your vision was covered by something that distorted anything you looked at. That’s the way it is for her, as it might be for others in her situation, only she has a way of expressing it, her painting, her artistic ability. When therapists ask their clients to interpret something, they’re using the art to get through, to look into their minds and understand the problems.”

“Will they ask her to paint something where she is?”

“They might, but I don’t know if she would. She’ll paint something when that something is attacking her to get out. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“I’m so sorry to bring you into this. It wasn’t right. I should have just left you out there enjoying the scene.”

“No, I’m glad you let me know you’re here. Don’t think that way.”

He nodded, but I could see that he wasn’t convinced. He lowered his eyes. I leaned forward and put my hand on his. When he raised his gaze so that his eyes met mine, I clearly saw all of the pain he was suffering. It wasn’t hard to understand how much he longed for a normal life. Perhaps this was why he was so reluctant to meet others our age or become friends with those who might be his schoolmates. Their much calmer, settled world would constantly remind him of how difficult his own was and how much he would be unable to share.

“I hate to see you so sad, Brayden.”

His fingers danced over my hand, and then he looked up and smiled. “I don’t think I could remain depressed
around you too long, Amber. You wouldn’t let it be. I bet your mother is the same way.”

“Yes, she is.”

“You’re very lucky.”

“I’m lucky I met you,” I said. His eyes seemed to find their light again. He gazed at me, and for a moment, in the dim light, his eyes appeared to be on fire.

Slowly, almost by an inch at a time, he brought his lips to mine.

It was a soft but long kiss. I felt all sorts of doors unlock within me. He put his hand on my shoulder, and I shifted so that I could fall into his waiting arms. He embraced me, and we lay back against his sleeping bag. He glanced at it. My eyes followed his.

“It’s kind of cozy in there,” he said. “Even undressed.”

“I can’t think of any other way,” I told him.

Would it make any sense to say we made love so softly, so gently and easily, that it didn’t feel as if I had crossed any line or broken through any barrier? It was as if I was making love the way I had hoped and imagined it would be, the lovemaking of dreams, without any guilt or regret. I have heard other girls talk about their fears of becoming pregnant because of their loss of control or passion. There’s that terrible time of waiting and praying for their next period, an anticipation almost like the anticipation of a patient waiting for results of a biopsy. Just witnessing that anxiety is enough for some girls to become chaste until they’re married.

But then there are those girls who admit to making love out of fear that if they didn’t, they’d lose their boyfriends, and for them, that was a major trauma. Some even think it makes them superior to their friends. They wear their loss of virginity like a badge. Most of the reasons I heard for their lovemaking sounded wrong to me. I felt above all that.

Ordinarily, I would have thought that in these great exploratory moments, I should be making more
discoveries about the boy, but for me, it was as if I had just found my own body. Pleasurable sensations came to me from places I had least expected. No part of me was dull or insensitive. No matter where his lips met my skin, something electric, warm, and thrilling traveled to every other part of me. Even my fingers tingled.

I felt my whole body soften in his arms. It was a total surrender, a willing surrender. I was eager to see what other places on my body would tingle and awaken. The woman I often pictured curled up inside me like some mature fetus awoke and quickly unfolded throughout, slipping under my breasts, around my heart, and down through my thighs, even to my toes.