Loud Awake and Lost (11 page)

“I think I bought the boots on Canal Street.” My words came as a surprise to me. I'd had to make a choice between these boots and a pair of vintage Doc Martens. I'd paid in cash. It had been freezing that day, the dead of winter. I'd marched straight out of the army-navy shop in them. Ready for anything and rushing toward everything.

The unexpected surge of remembrance was like a hug from a lost friend.

From my corkboard, the band members of Weregirl were observing me as if they'd been waiting for this moment ever since I got home.

“One step closer to the real me,” I said.

“Embie, no.” When I looked up, Rachel's eyes were as steady as stars. “You're so wrong about that. All parts of you, right this minute, are the real you, okay? With every new thing that you remember, don't let that be something you forget.”

They had all gathered to watch the artist. A silvery afternoon in Carroll Park, chilled in silence. He had set up a picnic table. His concentration was utter, an invisible wall between himself and the crowd that had grown around him. Tubes of paints were spread out on the table. I remembered their names from my freshman art class—cadmium red, Chinese white, phthalo green.

I'd approached from a distance, lost in the audience while wanting to stay close. But he knew I was here. That was what mattered. I watched him squeeze paints, smearing color with a spatula-shaped instrument.

“The darklight on the silk screen will pick up the negative.” His voice. Exactly that voice. It prickled the hair at the nape of my neck.

“Let me look.” Had I spoken out loud?

And then I was aware of someone else. Someone watching us from the periphery.

The artist's voice reverberated in my head. But that couldn't happen—it was a distortion in my own brain. “Look. Look at you. You're my best work.”

And now I saw T-shirts hanging like ghosts, caught in the bare branches. Some folded, others arranged to reveal images of me.

My own face, underwater. My opened eyes were sightless, my lips were a sealed slash of blood, my hair stood out from my face, unfurled like seaweed, snakes, Medusa.

When I opened my mouth to speak, all that I could taste was icy, dirty water—it filled my lungs, heavy as earth, pushing down on me, swallowing me—

I woke in a single hard motion, lunging forward; my eyes popped open like a doll's. A nightmare. That's all it was. It felt like more. My body was sweaty, the darkness impenetrable. For a few moments I couldn't move. I stared at the ceiling, listening to the sound of my heart in my ears. I couldn't have spoken a word if I tried, or moved a muscle. My limbs were collapsed like bent tent struts beneath the covers, my mind smoked like a just-tamped fire, my thoughts were still somersaulting, unguided, in a netherworld between air and water, dreams and wakefulness, life and death.

Let it stay forgotten.

The thought burst clean through me. Full awareness. I inhaled through the sharp kick of adrenaline. It had never occurred to me that I might not want to rip open every single closed stitch of my lost memories. That I shouldn't rattle and shake what ought to be left untouched, a pirate's locked and rusted trunk, long settled at the brackish bottom of my subconscious.

I rubbed my face and looked around. The Day-Glo dial of my alarm clock read half past one. My fingertips found my phone right next to it.

U up? alone? ok to call?

in 5

When Holden phoned a few minutes later, I was more than awake—I was wired. I could tell by the background echo that he was out in the dorm hall, where he often liked to hang out.

“What's up?”

“It seems stupid now. I had a nightmare. I shouldn't have texted. I was scared. I'm sorry. And now I feel like such a baby.” Though I was comforted to hear his voice.

“Here I was thinking booty call.” Holden sounded tired but amused. “So are you feeling normal now?” I could tell by the downshift in noise that he'd gone into his room. “You wanna tell me all about it?”

“It's boring, to tell someone your dream.”

“Try me.”

So I retold it quickly, as if it were nothing. “I was dead but I wasn't—and my drowned face was being sold as art on a T-shirt.”

“Whoa.” I could almost see Holden's wry smile. “Awright, to get philosophical for a second, maybe this isn't so random when you analyze it. I think we all need to think people will miss us if we die. Even people we hardly know. Who doesn't want to be memorialized on a T-shirt? There's a little bit of tragic-death rock star in everyone. And you got closer to the mortal edge than most of us. Right?”

I forced a small laugh. “Sure, I guess.”

“So maybe you were just indulging a morbid fascination. Almost like you were attending your own funeral. If that makes sense?”

“Sure.” I leaned back against the headboard. Allowing myself to deflate. “Yes, I mean. Yes, it does.”

“Cool. I think this has been a productive session. I accept Visa or PayPal.”

“Ah, shut up.” But I was grateful for Holden stepping so easily into doing what he did best—smoothing out my world. By now, my eyes had adjusted and I could see the lumpy furniture outlines of my safe-room nest. “Here's something. I got back my leather jacket and my black boots tonight.”

“The old new look.” Holden cleared his throat. “You know, for a while, Ember, with the way you'd changed and all, I thought you broke up with me because you'd met someone else.”

“No…” That last night with Holden. The flickering apple-scented candle, the warmth of Holden's body, my dragging knowledge that I didn't want him enough. And then I made myself ask, although this was a hard one: “I know we've been through this, but I wasn't extra depressed or anything back then, was I, Holden? Maybe about you? Or giving up dance? There wasn't some part of me that would have wanted to…hurt myself, that night?”

“Don't even, Emb,” he said. “You got dramatically interrupted, but you never lost yourself that way. I was watching you. From a distance, sure. But I never took my eyes off you.”

“Right.”

“Seriously. I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true.”

“I know.”

Holden didn't have hard, fast answers. Just assurances. Right now, that would have to be enough.

It was like old times, when we'd loitered on the phone late-night and never seemed to run out of things to say. Holden talked midterms, and his mother's imperious insistence that he get a second fitting for the blazer she'd bought him for Drew's engagement party. I told him about the Jake and Smarty date, my flubbed dinner, the Theory of Knowledge quiz tomorrow I was sure to fail.

Eventually I could feel that numb, familiar desire for sleep roll through me.

“Thanks for staying on the line with me, Holden.”

“Anything for you. I'm gonna get going on this conflict res essay, but I'll put the phone down and keep you on speaker. Just if you want some white noise?”

“Yeah, I'd like that.” We used to do white noise, too. Stay on the line without actually conversing. It wasn't as aggressive as video chat, and it wasn't as insistent as IM'ing. It was a peaceful sound that held us together when we weren't quite ready to let go.

“If I leave my desk, it's just to take a piss or get coffee in the lounge. How's that sound?”

“Sounds like thanks.” I stretched out, flipped my pillow, and burrowed into the covers with the phone next to my ear. I listened to the click of Holden's fingers swift on the keyboard, the dependable clearing of his throat, the whispery turn of a notebook page. If I dreamed at all again tonight, I hoped it would be of Holden's profile in this moment, serene and focused, patiently waiting for me to close my eyes and breathe the breath of sleep.

The next morning, when I clomped downstairs to the kitchen in my boots and jacket, my parents held their tongues. Which I was glad about. I felt a little bit self-conscious wearing all of it, anyway, like in those early months at Addington when I'd had to use a wheelchair. Gliding down the corridors or wheeling through the garden, I'd wanted to shout to anybody, all the patients, staff, visitors—anybody who spied me—that I was only in this contraption for a little while. That I was temporary damage.

Even with the long denim skirt (that I didn't love but didn't actively dislike, either) Mom had given me last Christmas, my boots and jacket made me feel a different kind of different. Not broken. The opposite. I felt braver. I felt like a girl who'd push back.

In homeroom, though, Claude lost no time. He was lounging with Lucia on the windowsill, his chest puffed to flaunt his Georgetown sweatshirt, though most everyone else in the entire senior class would have been cringingly superstitious about wearing their top-choice college in the months before hearing news.

“Check it out,” he said, his smirk firmly in place. “There's a new sheriff in town. What do you call that look, Emb? Rockabilly goth?”

“Strong show of wit, Claude. By the way, Georgetown called—your sweatshirt got in, but you're wait-listed.”

“Har-har.” Claude rolled his eyes, truly unbothered. He seemed to have no nerve endings; he never cared if he got snapped at or chewed out.

As Rachel came rolling into homeroom, he shifted focus to her. “Hey, remember those jokes you made, Rachel? About Ember's makeover, last year? Looks like it's time for an encore.”

“What jokes?” I asked.

“Claude, do you ever shut up? They were just dumb jokes.” Rachel was eyeing me to see if I cared. “Exceptionally dumb. Plus I've gotten to appreciate the new-old-new Ember.” But I could tell Rachel was embarrassed; she was visibly squirmy.

“Emb's better as a ballerina,” Tom called over from the back of the room, where he was in the middle of a cram session but obviously had been dual processing with an eavesdrop.

“Except that I'm not even taking dance this semester.”

“You're also better with Holden,” said Claude. “Is it true you two are going for it again? That's got to count for double as physical therapy.”

I laughed, sort of. I didn't want to get defensive. I had no comment, officially, on Holden. But Rachel was at him in an instant. “You know what, Claude? Why don't you take a time-out from this conversation? You've already hit the ninety percent marker for talking about things that aren't your business.”

“Claude,
caro
mio,
I agree. And I also like your jacket, Ember,” piped up Lucia. “It's how all the students look, you know. Back in Firenze.” Her liquidy dark eyes were full of approval, and I felt a surge of gratitude toward her.

“Hey, Lucia, I keep meaning to ask you—who was that girl at your Halloween party, in the yellow mask? Maisie, I think her name was.”

Lucia shrugged. “I don't know any girl named Maisie. Maybe she was an artist. They come and they go; it's hard to keep track. My uncle likes the company of young artists and aspiring artists. He threw open his doors to them when he was here, and he would have these exhibits, these salons showing their work. And some of the students still come to the parties and stomp around and think they own the place.”

“Kind of like you in those bossy boots, Emb.”

“Enough already, Claude,” I snapped. “They're just boots and a jacket. Not my personal manifesto.”

But I was lying. They were important. In the hush of this morning's walk to school, I'd enjoyed how they anchored me inside my body, making me feel protected and mysterious and, for once, an older version of myself instead of the girl I was always trying to catch a backward glance at.

And yet in what should have been the comfort of homeroom, surrounded by kids who'd known me since grade school, I was feeling like an imposter. Was it really so impossible to change anyone's mind (including my own) about who I was? Then again, was I being too hard on my friends? I didn't want them to lie to me—I valued their opinions. But I wanted them to embrace that I'd changed—not to keep harking back to someone who didn't exist anymore.

And I wasn't prepared for Tom's confession when he fell in step with me on the way to first period.

“Hey, Ember. I was hoping I could catch up with you about something.”

“Is this about getting a Saturday court time from Holden? Because I asked him already—he said no problem.” Tom was a tennis player, but it was Holden's family that belonged to the local tennis and squash club. Tom and my dad always used my connection to Holden to reserve courts under the Wildes' account. It was technically against club rules, but Holden never minded; actually, he seemed glad whenever he could pull a fast one on the snobs who ran the club.

“Ah, that's great. Thanks. But this is about something else.”

We'd been heading up the stairs, but as we swung through the door to the upper library hall, I sensed that what Tom had to say was more important than scheduling court times. We moved to the side, dropping pace for privacy and to let the other kids pass. But still Tom seemed to hesitate.

“What is it?” I prompted. “What's wrong?”

“Ember, I haven't been sure how to approach you about this. I don't even have a real handle on if you want to hear it. Then I decided it was worse to keep it in. I can't keep it from you anymore. You need to know.”

“Know what?”

“Here's the deal. I met that kid. Anthony.”

“Oh.” Beneath my ribs, my heart began to beat in that same, horribly pained way whenever I heard Anthony's name.

“Nobody else out of our friends did, so I never mentioned it to anyone. And I met him just by chance. He came to pick you up from school one afternoon. It was late—I'd been getting tutoring, and I think you'd been at a dance practice.”

“Anthony Travolo came to pick me up?” I'd stopped walking altogether. My shoulder met the wall for support.

“Yeah, I think so. He was just outside the back entrance. He was waiting for you, and you and I came out together, and you introduced him as Anthony. We spent a few minutes talking ice hockey. But then…” Tom was facing me, his arms crossed at his chest, his head bowed a bit, like a professor lost in thought.

“What? What?”

He looked up. “Well, here's where it gets a little funky. A cop car turned in from Court Street. Not in an urgent way, not like it was on anyone's tail. But your guy, Anthony—he kind of flipped.”

My
guy.
“You think the cops were there for him?”

“No, but I think
he
thought so. He got tense. And then he bolted. And you took off after him—you followed him down the street and disappeared. I just kind of stood there and watched the whole thing. But then the next day, you never said anything about it. So I didn't, either. I didn't want to blow it up into some gossip item. Get Claude all pumped up. So I left it alone.” Tom gazed at me perplexedly. “Do you remember anything about that?”

“No,” I admitted. What a strange story. I tried to picture it, and I couldn't, though my body was prickly as if I were once again about to give chase, again tailing the long fleeting shadow of Anthony Travolo. “I know he wasn't a stranger,” I said. “But what was he, to me? What was our situation? Could you tell?”

Tom shifted his backpack. “I suck at these things, but, okay—my instinct was that you seemed with him. Like,
with
him
with him. It wasn't any one specific thing you were saying or doing, but he hadn't surprised you by meeting you. You were happy to see him. Look, I don't know if I should have thrown any of this at you, Ember. But I feel bad that I can remember Anthony and you can't.”

“No, I'm glad you told me.” I touched Tom's arm reassuringly. He didn't like being out on an emotional ledge like this.

We started walking again, continuing until we'd stopped outside my classroom.

“You should do another Folly,” he blurted. “Okay, last time was a bust. The thing to remember, Emb, is it was never about the food. We'd have come over and housed canned ravioli if that's what you served. We're your friends. We want to show up for you. And you've got to lean on your best stuff. Those nights were what made you
you.
”

I could feel my eyes sting. “Right,” I said helplessly. “Thanks.” Was that true? For me, those nights hadn't been about me being me. They'd been about getting the dishes perfect. I hadn't looked through any other lens, or even much considered what Follies had meant to the others.

After Tom took off, I detoured to the bathroom, locked myself in a stall, and pressed my head against the cool metal door. Would last year always be a dark jungle that I was hurtling through, with only a single flashlight to guide me? I should be used to it by now. But I wasn't.

During lunchtime, I knew by the way Rachel kept trying to draw me into the conversation that I wasn't fully participating. The others seemed to feel it, too. At one point, Tom left the lunch table and bought me a peanut-butter brownie from the bake sale that was being held outside the gym. Later, when I hit my study carrel to work during afternoon free period, I found that Perrin had taped me a note—
It's me, Perry, just passing by & sending you xoxoxoxo love ya, Emb.

I'd known Perrin since we did Camp Imagine in the summer after fifth grade. Tom's family went to my church. Rachel and I had been friends since the days of naps and finger paints. My crew was tight-knit and well known to me, familiar as every shelf and corner of the house I'd grown up in. And yet now I was expected to believe that Anthony Travolo had been in my life to the point where he was picking me up from school? That we'd been out together, but I hadn't considered introducing him to Rachel? Or to my parents? Had I been ashamed of this guy? Frightened of him? Was he really in trouble with the police? What had he meant to me? I'd checked and rechecked every email, every Facebook message. He was nowhere. One thing I knew about our connection for sure: I'd been keeping Anthony a secret.

Why?

There were little drafts of an email I kept saving, that I'd been writing to Anthony's parents. I'd been working on it for weeks. Starting it, restarting it. I swiped out paragraphs of guilt and sadness and replaced them with new ones. But I'd never gotten it in any shape to send. I was scared of it—scared that whatever sentiment I expressed to the Travolos wouldn't be correct or appropriate. That in trying to do something right, I'd unintentionally do something hurtful and damaging and wrong.

Dr. P and my parents didn't want me to push it. They wanted me to preserve my feelings, my sensitivity. When I'd written Dr. P about it, he'd written back to “stop perseverating on this letter. One thing at a time. Let it go for now.”
Perseverating
was a term he'd used when I was at Addington, and it basically just meant to stop chasing the same worry around and around, with no meaningful way out. At some point, though, I knew I'd have to trade the chase for a decision.

In other words, I'd have to be brave and hit send.

The school day dragged, and I was glad for the end of it. All I had now was physical therapy. As I swept through the city in the underground, the anonymous subway ride felt both romantic and authentic. Alone, surrounded by strangers, and on my way to anywhere, I contained any and all of the Embers I might have been.

“New boots,” Jenn commented when she saw me.

“Old boots. Reclaimed.” I pulled them off and sat them on the bench, like a pair of dusty thug friends. They'd been all the way to the bottom of that river with me. Now they would stand guard over my physical therapy session. It was probably a stupid thought, but I liked to imagine that the boots were somehow encouraging me, subliminally, to push through this session—and to be grateful that I was here, alive, and able to do the work at all.

I'd been diligent with therapy since that first time I missed it, but over the next hour, as I pulled and stretched and bent into as many tilts, tucks, and planks as my body could withstand, I could feel that I was coming at this from a stronger place than usual. It beefed up my confidence, envisioning new muscles thickening my tendons and ligaments, promising me future power.

“Nice, Ember. You haven't even asked for a break! Do you realize that?” Jenn could give me at least a dozen variations of positive encouragement—and I was grateful for every single one.

“Okay, but I'm taking a break now.” I dropped to the mat and let my cheek claim its sneaker-smelling surface. “It sucks how much it hurts, but I'm really trying to force myself past the pain. It's different than when I was at Addington—when I felt too close to broken. Now I feel like I can…endure.”

“This time next year, I bet a lot of what you're calling pain will be more like a twinge. Like pain memory. And I'm not just saying that to psych you up.” Jenn knelt on the mat next to me. Her face was serious sunshine. “You're so young, Ember, and you're naturally in such good shape that your body's snapping back like a rubber band. The prognosis is for a near one hundred percent recovery. In a couple of years, I'll bet you that—with the exception of your scars—that horrible night, and everything that came after it, will be completely erased from your body.”

My smile was a cover, I hoped. I knew Jenn had meant everything she said in her most upbeat way possible, but as I left the Y, I could hear only that one word:
erased.

Reflexively, I touched the scar on my forehead. It was like a secret monster, a hideous zipper beneath my bangs. No amount of scar gel and cocoa butter would erase the ugly rickrack of that mark. That night would take aim at me every time I looked into the mirror.