Just Like Fate (5 page)

I feel like an orphan, even though I’m in my mother’s house
and my father’s called three times already to check up on me.
No one’s mentioned that I left last night, left Gram, but I can
feel it. I can feel it in my mom’s silence. My sister’s glare. My
brother’s kindness.

I sit in the bedroom at my mother’s house, staring out the
window like a caged animal longing for escape. This is exactly
how I felt during my parents’ divorce. Alone. Scared. When
self-preservation mode kicks in, I climb out of bed and dial Simone. It goes to voice mail once again, and anger burns me up—she
should know how much I need her now. She should have known
how much I needed to stay with my grandmother last night.

I walk over to my closet and pull out the nearest thing to
me: a Clinton State University sweatshirt—Teddy’s college.
Christopher’s college.

Suddenly the witty stranger from last night seems like my
only friend left in the world. He’s obviously not, I know this.
But it doesn’t stop me from grabbing my backpack and stuffing it full of extra clothes before slipping down the stairs and
out the front door.

Chris was right—the houses really do all look different in the
daytime. I drive past the old church on the corner as the dim
morning light begins to brighten. The street is lined with
eccentric houses of blues and yellows that I didn’t notice in
the dark. Everything is familiar and strange at the same time.

“Damn,” I murmur to myself, slowing to creeper-van
speed until I pause near the end of the block. The truck is gone
that Chris had pointed out before, but the red house halfway
down the street looks about right. I pull up to the curb, trying
out the space, then decide that’s not it.

I do this—up and down the street like a tried-and-true
stalker—until my phone buzzes on the passenger seat. I turn
frantic when I see it’s Simone.

“Where have you been?” I ask. “I’ve been looking for you
since last night.” A mixture of anger and relief floods me when
I hear her voice.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to . . . I’m sorry
about Gram and for dragging you to that stupid party. And . .
. God, Linus. Do you hate me?”

“No,” I say automatically, but look down at my lap.
I hate
myself.
She must still be worried because she’s quiet, and I
know I have to fill the void. “I just thought you were canceling
our best-friends-forever contract,” I mumble.

“Never,” she responds with a soft laugh. “It’s a blood
oath.”
There’s a pause when neither of us speaks, and I feel . .
. different. Like I don’t have anything to say. Or rather, that
I do.
Why did you make me go?
But I know I can’t blame her.
Rationally, I know that.
The radio set ends and a commercial comes on; I switch
the station and Electric Freakshow’s “Magnets for Fate” is
playing. I close my eyes as I listen. “. . . sidewalk paved in
hitches; broken hearts not fixed by stitches . . .”
“Linus,” Simone starts, clearly feeling the void that’s
opened between us. “Everyone’s looking for you. Your mom
and Teddy both called me. They’re worried.
I’m
worried.
You’ve got to go home.”
I shake my head even though she can’t see me. “I can’t
go back there,” I murmur into the phone. “I can’t face them
again. I left. I left my family and I just can’t deal with the fallout
of that right now.”
“You have to,” Simone says. “At least for now. The funeral’s Tuesday and I will be right there by your side.” She pauses.
“I screwed up last night, Caroline,” she adds quietly. “I left my
phone in the car when I went out later with Felicity and Gwen.
I didn’t check it until this morning. I was distracted, and I
know that makes me a horrible friend. But I’m sorry.”
“I’m on my way back,” I say. Not, “It’s okay, I understand.”
I can’t bring myself to say that. “I’ll . . . I’ll call you later,” I tell
her.
Simone is quiet until she mumbles a good-bye. After we
hang up, I look around my car, seeing the makings of a bad
Dateline
special on runaways. Where did I think I would go?
With Chris—the stranger from last night who could be a serial
killer for all I know? And even if he’s not, he’s a college guy
who went to pick up a girl at a party—wham, bam. It’s delusional to think he’d really want my brand of drama.
“Dumb,” I say, pulling into the street as I start toward
home—leaving behind my ideas of escape. At least for now.

Somehow I make it through two more days without taking off
again, though admittedly, I spend a lot of it holed up in my
room—a room that doesn’t feel like home. Finally, Tuesday
comes.

In black dresses and suits, the family meets in the entryway and somberly caravans to the church. We sit in the first
few pews; Gram’s in a casket up front. There’s a massive,
framed picture of her on an easel to the right, and I stare at it
until I think it’s moving. Then I look away.

I am numb through the ceremony—Mom has to elbow me
when it’s my turn to read and I do it like I’m having an outof-body experience. I feel like I’m watching from miles away
when Natalie breaks down during her own reading. I close
off my feelings—everything. I watch, unfeeling, as Albert leads
Natalie back to her seat.

Afterward, we go to Gram’s house, which is catered for a
formal after-wake get-together thanks to Aunt Claudia. I loiter
in the living room, thinking that Gram would’ve preferred a
casual party to this. When no one’s looking, I slip upstairs and
spend the rest of the time in my old room. Packing. I don’t cry,
or rather, I don’t
let
myself cry.

Once everyone leaves, my mother and Aunt Claudia
steal away to my grandmother’s bedroom to sort through her
papers—something that feels so violating, I go downstairs and
play the TV really loudly. At one point Junior jumps onto my
lap and I run my fingers through his white fur like Gram used
to.

I watch the television mindlessly until Teddy comes in
and drops down on the couch next to me, scaring Junior away.
I shoot him a pointed look, and he laughs. “Sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “He doesn’t like anyone but Gram
anyway.”
“Little bastard.”
I laugh softly, and then my brother clears his throat like
he’s about to make a speech. “I’ve been thinking, Coco,”
Teddy says. “Maybe you should come back to Clinton with
me.”
I lift my eyebrow, smiling a little. “Are you going to sneak
me into the dorms?”
He shrugs as if it’s a possibility, but he doesn’t elaborate.
Instead he turns back to the television. It’s not until five minutes later that I catch on to what he was thinking.
“Dad.” I’ve barely spoken the word out loud when my
mother and Aunt Claudia are coming downstairs, arguing
over some of the finer points of Gram’s estate. I hate hearing
them talk about Gram’s belongings as if this is a garage sale,
so I ask Teddy to walk with me back to Mom’s so I can sleep.
We don’t say anything about my father on the walk home.
I wouldn’t even know where to start—I hardly said a word
to my dad at the funeral, and he didn’t stay long at Gram’s
house after. But as I lie in bed that night, I think about how
much he doesn’t know about me anymore—and how in some
ways, that’s a good thing. If nothing else, at least he won’t be
disappointed.
I was twelve years old when my parents divorced. It’s
wasn’t amicable or well planned. It was like an explosion of
feelings—the shrapnel of their anger embedding in all of us.
Natalie was only fourteen, but she stuck to Mom like glue.
Teddy was sixteen, busy enough with his own life to avoid
seeing the drawn-out fights. The hurtful comments.
But I witnessed it all up to the point where I went to my
grandmother and begged her to take me in. She spoke to my
parents about it. My father protested, and my mother cried,
but ultimately Gram strongly suggested that perhaps I’d fare
better out of the crosshairs, and they begrudgingly agreed. It
was only supposed to be for a little while. When my dad finally
moved out three months later, I cut ties with him. I didn’t
have a good reason. Maybe I felt like, since he was choosing to
leave the house, he was choosing to leave me. He still sends a
birthday card with twenty bucks in it, and he and Teddy have
dinners on Sundays. He and Natalie speak on the phone occasionally. But to me my father’s like a stranger—albeit a polite
one.
Which makes considering living with him even more terrifying.

I wake up with the kind of clarity that comes when your sleeping brain resigns itself to something, and I walk downstairs
with purpose. My mother and Natalie are at the kitchen table;
Albert’s probably at work, and my guess is that my oldest and
youngest siblings are still asleep. The house is silent even with
Mom and Natalie together, like they’re communicating telepathically—noiselessly hating me. The house is still, but in the
morning after the funeral, there is no peace. It’s just emptiness.

I swallow hard as I sit across from my mother, staring at
her until she looks up. When she does, she seems startled as if
I appeared out of nowhere.

I knot my hands together under the table, wondering
whether the words will be able to pass my lips. “I want to go
live with Dad,” I say quietly. My sister gasps, but I’m only courageous enough to dart a quick look at her expression. I can’t
believe I just said that out loud.

“W-what?” my mother stammers. “Why?”
“I . . . can’t stay here anymore, Mom.” My voice cracks
over her name. “It just hurts too much.” But I know Gram
isn’t the only reason I’m leaving: I can’t handle being the odd
man out in my own family.
Natalie shakes her head, her mouth open in disbelief.
“You think the rest of us don’t miss Gram just as much as you
do?” she asks. “Do you think you’re so damn special that you
deserve a reset button whenever life gets tough?”
“I know I’m not special,” I say, matching my sister’s tone.
Hot tears race down my cheeks, and I grip the edge of the
table so I don’t lose my resolve. “And I know exactly what you
think of me.” I dart a pleading look at my mother. “Just give
me a chance to rebuild,” I say. “Please, Mom. I can’t deal here.
I’m falling apart.”
She runs her hand roughly through her hair, leaning
closer to me. “But if we’re together—”
“I don’t want to be together,” I say. “I want to be alone—or
at least be able to start fresh. I want to be someone else. And I
can do that at Dad’s house.”
My sister pushes back from the chair and jumps up. “That
won’t make it better, Caroline. Do you think Dad won’t see
what a jerk you are?”
“Natalie,” my mother says quietly, touching my sister’s
arm.
“No, Mom,” she says, and then points at me. “You’re a
runner, Caroline. You run away from everything and everyone
at the first sign of trouble. And you don’t care who you leave
behind.” Her contempt for me is obvious—it’s pushing me
harder out the door.
Why can’t she ever just back down?
“Think of someone else for a change,” Natalie adds, then,
quieter, “Think of
Mom
.”
I turn my gaze to my mother, but she can’t look at me. The
coldness of that—of my mother too distraught to even look at
me—makes what I say next even more disgusting.
“Let me go, Mom. Let me start over.”
My mother is trembling as she picks up a spoon to stir her
coffee, not looking up. “I’ll call your father this afternoon,”
she says calmly. My sister stalks away with a sort of hatred I
choose not to acknowledge.
“I’m sorry,” I say so softly to my mother that I’m not sure
she hears me. I stay seated for the most awkward minute of
my life, deafened by silence, before I leave to go back upstairs.
The entire way to my room I think that I can’t stop disappointing them.
Even now I see that my every move just compounds the
hurt I caused when I was twelve. I don’t think I can make it
better, ever make it better. But without Gram I’m lost. I can’t
bring her back, but I’m not sure I can live with her gone either.
Mostly, though, I’m just terrified that my sister is right about
me.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming back to school today,”
Simone says, elbowing the guy with the locker next to mine as
she wiggles her curves into my personal space. Simone studies me with her black-lined eyes, managing to look both concerned and—probably because I didn’t tell her this one little
piece of information—annoyed at the same time.

“The service was yesterday,” I say. “I’m back.” I pull books
from my bag—books I took home Friday but never cracked
open—and shove them into the messy metal box. It’s Wednesday, my grandmother died five days ago, and for the first time
in my life, I don’t give a crap about school.

“I know, dummy, I was there,” my friend says softly. “I just
thought you’d take a few more days off. At least the rest of the
week.”

“For what? To stare at Natalie?” I say, pulling my English
book from the teetering tower of junk.
“Yeah,
that’s
not a good idea,” she says.
“Actually, I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. “It’s weird, but
this whole thing has sort of nixed the drama in my house. It’s
like we’re all in the same boat now. Bonded by misery.”
“For serious?” Simone asks, looking surprised.
“I mean at least for now,” I say. “Who knows what’ll happen later. But my mom keeps wanting to just hang out and
look at pictures and watch movies and eat ice cream. It’s just
. . .”
“Too much,” Simone finishes my sentence. “I totally get
that. People deal in different ways.”
“Right,” I say. “To me, looking at those pictures just
makes it worse. It’s not going to bring her back. Either way,
Gram’s gone.”
“I know, Linus, I . . .” Simone’s expression is filled with
pity; I look away and slam my locker door shut. “I’m sorry,”
she says, hugging me. I don’t reciprocate—not because I
don’t want to, but because my reaction time’s too slow. Something about being back at school where everything is normal
reminds me more of Gram and how abnormal my life is right
now.
“Walk you to English?” she offers.
I turn from my locker and weave into the flow of traffic;
Simone falls in step with me and out of nowhere, Gwen and
Felicity appear behind us like fighter pilots in formation. The
hall is jam packed because there are only five minutes before
first period—everyone is either doing last-minute book swaps
or trying to get in a few more seconds of gossip before the
mandatory no texting time starts. I can hear nails on smart
screens behind me the entire way down the long, main hallway. We turn into the English corridor; at the door to Mrs.
Martin’s room, Simone gives me a side squeeze.
“It’ll get better,” she says quietly. Sincerely.
“Thanks,” I say automatically. I still haven’t cried since
Gram died, and it’s starting to really bother me. Yesterday
Natalie said she thinks I might be in shock.
“In the meantime, at least you have
that
to look at all
period,” she says, lifting a chin toward the classroom door.
Joel is walking through it; my stomach flips over.
“At least there’s that,” I say, smiling.
“Love you, chick,” Simone says quickly before turning
and walking away with two texting shadows trailing behind
her. Before they turn the corner, Gwen looks back and catches
my attention. Baring midriff in October and teetering on toohigh heels, phone still in her hand, she blows me a kiss. It’s not
a flirty, silly one; instead it’s a kiss that I can almost see floating
through the air and landing softly on my cheek like the brush
of a butterfly wing. I smile sadly at her before she disappears
into the throngs of students. Then I head into class, feeling a
teeny bit better from the unexpected show of kindness.