Nobody but Us (24 page)

I want to die.

God, please. Please take me with him.

Stop punishing me.

“ZOE BENSON? YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. YOU HAVE the right to remain silent …”

I don’t feel them put the handcuffs on me. Only later, when they are taking them off at the police station, do I realize they had ever been there at all.

THEY PUT ME IN A HOME. TWO HUNDRED MILES FROM my dad, who hasn’t come to see me. They say he will come eventually, but I don’t believe them, and I don’t want him to.

I am lonely here.

I expect to be lonely forever.

They said they have it on tape, the homicide. They never call it murder and I won’t, either. It was an accident. I tell myself that and they tell me, too. An accident. But I shouldn’t have been stealing and I really shouldn’t have run away. I should have stayed. Checked on the man. Waited for the police, they say.

I’m here because I didn’t stay.

Will discharged one bullet from that gun. One bullet as he shoved me to the ground. No one knows where it went. Not at the cops, not at me. Out into space, maybe. I think it was just another accident. A jolt of his hands when he pushed me away.

That means he agreed with me, that we needed to give ourselves up and convince them it was all a misunderstanding. He didn’t mean to die. It was an accident.

But they only needed one bullet from his gun to answer with ten of their own.

I miss him. I wish we’d done everything two people can do together when we had the chance. I wish I hadn’t been afraid. Because that’s all it ever was, fear.

I will never be afraid again.

I get another hearing in a few weeks. They have to figure out what to do with me then. In the meantime, I write bad poetry and draw Will as I remember him, not as he looked when the news covered the whole thing, the accident with the wine bottle, the murder in the desert.

There was no one there to watch Will’s pine box get lowered into the ground. They didn’t send him back to North Dakota but kept him in Nevada. It feels like he’s not gone because I didn’t see them put him under the sand.

The other girls here have done terrible things. I can tell because their eyes are hard and they look at me like the girls in Will’s old home looked at me. Like I don’t belong.

I tell myself I won’t be lonely someday. I need to make myself believe I won’t always be lonely, even though Will won’t ever touch me again.

I’m empty here.

I need to get out so I can fill up and be whole again.

Will’s car went to impound, but they cleaned it out and gave me everything inside. At least, that’s what they say. There’s so much missing. My chimes. His sweatshirt.

And
I’m
the thief, they say.

But I have the rest of his clothes, and I wear them even though they are too big. I sleep with his pillow and his blanket. I hold everything left of him to me as though it can soak through my skin and into my blood.

I GET CHECKED ON A LOT. JUST PAIRS OF EYES popping in on occasion to look at me and a voice asking if I need anything.

What I really need is long gone.

The counselor here wants to talk about my dad, my mom. Will. The first thing I said to her was “No Will,” as though thin wisps of him will leave me forever if I talk about him, memories escaping like smoke through a cracked window.

So she asks me about my mom.

I used to have nightmares. I saw my mom fall at all angles. Downstairs, upstairs, under the stairs. More and more I was the one at the top of the stairs, watching her tumble down.

I started pushing her in my nightmares. I wasn’t just watching any longer; I put my hand out and shoved her down. In the morning I tried to remember that I wasn’t the one who pushed her down, but the dreams slipped sloppily into reality like oil into water.

It was an accident, I tell the counselor, but still my fault, so I had to be punished for it.

She leans forward and eyes me carefully when I stop talking. Then I tell her the truth.

“I wasn’t being punished because it was my fault my mom died. I was being punished because I had known the truth all along and never told anyone.”

The counselor sinks back into her chair with a sigh and scribbles notes into my file.

She tells me about people who knew me, who saw things in another life, coming forward to tell stories.

That’s why I’m here, really. Not because I ran. Not because I didn’t tell. But because these people with stories to tell think they can help me now. They don’t realize they already destroyed me with their silence all those years.

I hope all this sticks in their memories. A dead boy. Gunned down. An accident.

I hope that sticks like a dead mom, like a battered-child face never could.

If they let me leave the state one day, I’m going to get to Vegas. I’m going to go to school and become something great, something useful, something that saves. I’m going to bring wrinkled babies into the world for moms and dads who want their children and I’m going to take home the ones who aren’t wanted. I will put them in Little League and I will love them. I will do everything Will wanted me to do and more.

I am strong enough.

I know I am.

As soon as they let me out.

A NUMBER OF WONDERFUL AND TALENTED PEOPLE came together to help make me the writer I am and this book the novel that it is. My heart swells with gratitude.

My large and supportive family—parents, stepparents, brothers, sister, in-laws, aunts and uncles—have been instrumental in shaping and championing my dreams and goals, my expectations, and my successes. Thank you for putting up with and loving unconditionally a girl who was quirky and headstrong, and a woman who is even worse.

Infinite thanks, love, and moose-themed gifts to a group of ladies who make me laugh, cry with me, offer advice, critique my work with astonishing insight and intellect, and
every single day
make this journey more fun than I’d thought possible: Amanda Hannah, Amy Lukavics, Emilia Plater, Kaitlin Ward, Kate Hart, Kirsten Hubbard, Kristin Otts, Kody Keplinger, Lee Bross, Leila Austin, Phoebe North, Sarah Enni Herness, Steph Kuehn, Sumayyah Daud, and Veronica Roth. One paragraph of thanks isn’t enough, but not to worry—thirty years from now the memoirs will reveal all.

This book reached its potential thanks to the discerning eye and thoughtful considerations of my editor, Sarah Dotts Barley, who is a lady epitomizing grace and class and an absolute joy to work with. I am grateful to you and the entire team at Harper Children’s who came together to produce this book.

My sincerest thanks to my incredible agent, Suzie Townsend, who has tirelessly supported my writing and promoted my career. You are an advocate of the highest order and a lovely friend. I am indebted to Joanna Volpe for the pass-along.

Thank you to Professor Juan Guerra for invaluable words of wisdom when they were most needed.

My eternal love and gratitude to two beautiful pixies who brought magic into my life and who also taught me to be better, to become the person they deserve.

Paul. The love of my life. Thank you for never doubting. Not for a single moment. And thank you for finding my artistic temperament amusing rather than annoying. I love this life with you.

KRISTIN HALBROOK is a Seattleite who loves good coffee, good food, good music, good
sports, good causes, and good reads. She’s both intense and a goofball, introverted and gregarious.
NOBODY BUT US
is her debut novel. Visit her online at www.kristinhalbrook.com.

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“Beautiful, heartbreaking, and exhilarating—
NOBODY BUT US
will have you holding your breath until the very last page.”

—
KODY KEPLINGER
, author of
THE DUFF

“A gracefully written, thought-provoking, and absorbing debut. I haven’t read a love story quite like it before, honestly.”

—
COURTNEY SUMMERS
, author of
CRACKED UP TO BE

Cover photo of couple © 2013 by Daria Nedelcu

Cover photo of railroad track © 2013 by gianlucabartoli / iStockphoto.com

Cover design by Michelle Taormina

HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Nobody But Us

Copyright © 2013 by Kristin Halbrook
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Halbrook, Kristin.

Nobody but us / Kristin Halbrook.—1st ed.

p.   cm.

Summary: Told in their separate voices, eighteen-year-old Will, who has aged out of foster care, and fifteen-year-old Zoe, whose father beats her, set out for Las Vegas together, but their escape may prove more dangerous than what they left behind.

ISBN 978-0-06-212126-4

EPub Edition © DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062121271

[1. Runaways—Fiction. 2. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 3. Automobile travel—Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction. 5. Family problems—Fiction. 6. Foster home care—Fiction. 7. West (U.S.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

12 13 14 15 16 17 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition