The Love That Split the World (24 page)

“I can’t,” I say, and Mom looks utterly crestfallen. Her eyes gloss over at the same instant they dart toward Dad’s. He’s just staring at me, reading me like I’m a horse, as he probably has been all summer. “It’s not you guys. It’s me. I’m not ready to talk to you about some things, and I need that to be okay.”

Mom wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand, and Dad comes to sit beside her, pulling her against his side. “That part is okay, sugar,” he says. “Just give us some time to think about
it.” Mom nods along, and I lean against her side.

“I do love the trip.”

“Except the board games,” Dad says. “You hate those.”

“I never said that,” I argue.

“You didn’t have to. You’re our kid. We’ve got your number.”

Mom and Dad give me the okay at dinner on Monday, four days before the trip.

“Under one condition,” Mom says.

“Anything.”

“You have to stay with someone,” Dad says. “Adults. We don’t want you here all alone while we’re across the country.”

“We talked to Megan’s parents,” Mom adds. “The Phillipses are happy to have you.”

“Megan’s not even home,” I remind them.

“Not the point,” Dad says. “You need some semblance of supervision.”

I don’t point out that Megan’s parents are the definition of “hands-off.” Megan’s been joking that they probably haven’t even noticed she’s gone yet. “Okay,” I quickly agree. “I’ll stay with the Phillipses. That’s perfect.”

“Good. We’ll be back on the twenty-first,” Mom says. “We’ll have to make the most of our last week together.”

I get up and throw my arms around them both. “Thank you so much.”

“We’re just happy you’re taking care of yourself, honey,” Mom says. “If three weeks apart can make a difference, then so be it.”

“I promise you it will,” I say. Three more weeks to work, three more weeks
with Beau
. As sad and strange as it will be to miss the trip, this is the best parting gift my parents could have given me. I’m going to find a way to make these three weeks stretch and last, use every second to make a memory I can hold on to. “Thank you.”

Dad stands behind Mom’s chair and squeezes her shoulders. “It’ll be good practice for us, for while you’re at Brown. Where you will be going. No matter what.”

Beau comes to pick me up that night, same as always, but this time he’s still covered in grease from work and his eyes are bloodshot.

“Hey,” I say, climbing in beside him.

“Hey.”

“You look tired.”

“You look beautiful.”

I turn my smile down toward my lap. “I have news.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“I’m skipping out on family vacation,” I answer, meeting his eyes. “I have a few more weeks here.”

“Really?” The barest hint of smile climbs up the side of his mouth, and I want to do whatever it takes to make it stay. “We gotta celebrate.”

“Oh, we do?”

He nods. “However you want. It’s your night.”

“Anything?”

He nods. “Name it.”

I glance out the window, considering asking for the moon or the stars, but tonight the small things Beau can give me are bigger and brighter than the lights in the sky. “Cereal,” I announce, and Beau laughs and pushes my chin down with his thumb.

His voice lowers, softens, filling the car with heat. “You wanna come over for cereal, Natalie Cleary?”

“I do, Beau Wilkes.”

We drive in silence, and when we get to Beau’s house, we see his brother’s Buick parked outside, headlights on and glowing across the unkempt, weed-ridden lawn. Beau leads me inside, the screen door whining, and the man I saw fall-down drunk a couple of weeks ago sits up on the dull brown couch, lifting a beer bottle into the air in greeting. “Who’s this?” he says.

“Mason, this is Natalie,” Beau says. “Natalie, this is my brother.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say.

Mason furrows his brow over his already squinty eyes. “Natalie.” He nods sharply. “Why don’t you go get a beer out of the fridge and come tell me what a girl like you is doing hangin’ out with my brother?”

“I lost a bet,” I say, following Beau straight through the living room.

“No doubt,” Mason calls after us. “When you get sick of him, I’ll be here.”

“Left your headlights on,” Beau calls back.

We don’t go to the kitchen, and instead head down the unlit hall toward Beau’s bedroom. He crouches in the corner between his bed and the Holy Credenza, twisting on the lamp sitting on the floor. I stand in the doorway, chest heavy, as I watch the
sharp lines of muscle shift across Beau’s back under his shirt. He sits back on the bed and says, “You gonna come in?”

I close the door behind me and sit beside him, staring into the browns and greens and golds of his eyes before my gaze travels down over his neck and shoulders, his chest and stomach, his legs. I look back up and he leans forward over me, his hair falling against my face, his mouth hovering over mine. Slowly, he brings his hand to my cheek. “Hey.”

I cover his hand with mine. “Hey.”

Beau shifts closer to me and gently tips my chin up so we’re breathing into one another, our chests expanding to press against each other with each inhalation. I close my eyes, and his mouth trails down to the hollow of my throat, his tongue brushing my skin. “Beau,” I barely whisper.

He lays me back against the bed and lies over me, his hand skimming down to my hip. “Beau,” I say again into his mouth. His bottom lip catches my top for an instant, making him smile.

“Natalie,” he whispers back.

I lift my fingers up to his neck, and he shudders under my touch. He turns his mouth into my palm and kisses it gently, and my hand slips down to curl around the collar of his T-shirt as he lowers himself until our bodies are aligned, warm against one another, our mouths barely touching. Every space between us aches. Every part of him feels warm and magnetic over me.

We’re both breathing heavily, and I run my lips over his, parting them and leaving another space between our open mouths. “Say my name again,” he says, faintly smiling.

“Beau.”
He kisses me. Deeply, softly, warmly. My hands slide up his back as I lift myself closer to him.

“You feel so good,” he says against my ear. I pull his belt loops closer to me, and he groans. I can’t think clearly, and I’m fighting an urge to whisper that I love him. The words replay in my mind as he kisses me more fiercely, and I don’t know if it’s a habit from making out with Matt or if I really do love Beau Wilkes already, but I know I don’t want to run. I know when I’m with him, I want to hold back all the darkness for him, like I feel he does for me.

“Natalie,” Beau murmurs into my hair, his mouth moving down to burrow into my collarbone. “I want you.”

A door slams shut somewhere in the house, and I sit bolt upright, my head colliding with Beau’s. He swears and clutches his head.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I say, clamping a hand over his. He shakes his head and looks over his shoulder to his door, through which we can hear voices. “Who is it?”

Apart from the stern lines between his eyebrows, his expression is wiped clean. “I think it’s my mom.”

He stands up, pulling his rumpled shirt back down over his stomach before running his hands through his hair and smoothing out his face.

“Beau!” a shrill voice calls from down the hall.

He looks over at me apologetically.

“It’s fine,” I say, standing and smoothing my tank top and hair. The corner of his mouth tweaks up, and he crosses toward me, pulling my hips against his. He kisses me on the mouth and then the forehead before leading me into the hallway. We step into the living room, and the woman on the far side of the couch squeals.

“Hey, baby,” she says with a sloppy grin, holding her arms out for a hug. She’s thin with bleached-blond curls and leathery, overly tan skin, dressed in jeans, cowgirl boots, and a tight denim jacket.

Beau looks between her and the burly, bald man standing behind her. “What’re you doin’ here?” he says to his mom.

She glances at Mason on the couch then back to Beau. “That any way to talk to your mama?”

“What’s
he
doin’ here?” Beau tips his head toward the man, who snakes an arm around Beau’s mom’s waist.

“Tell him, Darlene.”

She holds her left hand up in front of her chest and brandishes a diamond ring. “Bill and I got back together, and—well, baby, we’re married!”

Beau stares at her blankly, and Mason takes a long sip of beer, eyes fixed on the coffee table he has his feet up on. This is when Darlene notices me, leaning around Beau to get a good look at me, her lips pursed. “Hi there,” she says to me, then turns to Beau. “Beau, baby, why don’t you be a gentlemen and take your friend home. It’s time we celebrate, as a family.”

Beau stalks right past her to the front door without a word, and I hurry after him, turning back to say, hastily, “Nice to meet you all,” before chasing him down the steps and to the edge of the moonlit cornfield. He has both hands twisted through his hair, and he’s breathing heavily.

I touch his shoulder and he spins around. “That guy’s scum,” he spits. “What the hell is she thinking, gettin’ back with him?”

“I’m sorry,” I say helplessly.

He drags his hands down his face. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

When we get back to the top of my cul-de-sac, Beau’s still fuming silently. I wonder what happened between him and his mom, or him and Bill, to make him this upset. “Are you going to be okay going back there?” I say softly.

“I’m not goin’ back there.”

“Where are you going?”

He shrugs. “I’ll sleep in my truck.”

I pull his face toward me, and he nestles against the space between my neck and shoulder. “Come inside,” I say. “We can sleep in my closet.”

He tightens his arms around my middle. “I won’t sleep if I’m layin’ next to you, Natalie.”

Heat spreads all through me, and my insides start vibrating again. “Then I’ll stay in my room,” I say. “We’ll have a door between us.”

“You think I’ll sleep better layin’ ten feet from you than I will in my truck?”

“Don’t you?”

He laughs, and drags me onto his lap, his hands soft on my hips. “How tired do you feel right now?”

“Like I haven’t slept for four days, and someone just stabbed a shot of adrenaline into my heart.”

“That’s how I feel when I’m at home, miles away, and I think about you.” He brushes a few stray hairs away from my lips and kisses me. “Goodnight, Natalie.”

25

“Why are you glowing?” Alice says flatly when I come into her office.

“I don’t know,” I reply. “Maybe because my parents agreed to let me stay until the end of the summer?”

Alice eyes me skeptically. “You’re screwing the guy from the other world.”

“I am
not
.”

She holds her hands up in front of her. “Whatever,
making love
, I don’t care. Just don’t let it get in the way of everything else.”

“I’m not, and it won’t.” I will my blush to fade as I plop down across from her.

“I wonder what would happen if you got pregnant,” she says, eyes growing distant with thought.

“
Alice
, I’m not having sex with Beau.”

“I’m just saying, do you think the baby would disappear after your Closing? Do you think it would be like you two? Which world would it belong in? It’s actually not a bad idea . . . are you open to getting pregnant?”

“Are you open to me leaving and never coming back?”

She waves a hand dismissively. “Don’t get all bent out of shape. It was just a thought. Anyway, good job buying us time. But three weeks is still not much.”

“It’s not,” I agree. “Maybe we should get to work.”

“How’s the dancing going?”

I shrug. “It feels great. Sometimes we seem to travel forward or backward in time, but I haven’t seen any clues that there’s a third world.”

“She’s hiding somewhere.”

“Yeah,” I say, “or somewhen.”

Alice’s eyes dart to me. “What’d you say?”

“I just meant she could be hiding in some other
time
,” I clarify. Alice stands abruptly and shoves a pile of books out of the way, grabs her purse, then heads toward the door. “Where are you going?”

“Something came up,” she barks. “I’ll see you Thursday for hypnotherapy, okay?”

“Alice!” I call after her.

“Thursday!”

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I fish it out to see Joyce’s name onscreen. My heart stops, but when I open the message, it’s just a picture of a bundle of flowers with a little note from the coach and Mrs. Gibbons.
That’s so nice!
I type back while swallowing the latest wave of anxiety. Every new
message like that is just one more false alarm, one more reminder that Matt’s life is hanging in the balance and I’m no closer to figuring things out.

When Beau comes to get me that night, he looks more haggard than I’ve ever seen him. All day I’ve hardly stopped replaying our time together, haven’t stopped counting the seconds until we’re together again, but seeing him now, after a night in the truck and a long day at work, I know these excursions are pushing him too far. He needs rest. “We should take a couple of nights off,” I suggest.

“All right.” He reaches across the truck to pull me into his lap, awakening an electric current under my skin.

“That’s not what I mean,” I say, staring down into his parted lips. He starts to kiss my neck, and my breath becomes heavy, my fingers splaying out against his chest. “Beau, you need sleep. And you’re going to have to go home eventually.” It’s not what I want, but it’s what he needs.

He sighs, sets me back down beside him, and his eyes go to the steering wheel. “I know.” He runs his hand over his mouth and shakes his head. “You’re right. I need to go home.”

“I’ll miss you,” I say quietly. “Would you come to dinner here tomorrow?”

He drops his head back against the headrest and lets out a long breath.

“What?” I ask.

“Probably not a good idea. Parents don’t like me.”

“Mine would.” I can’t share everything with them, but I could share Beau. I want to.

“And what makes you think that?”

“Because I like you,” I say. He laughs and his face drops, the corners of his eyes crinkling. For a moment, he looks just like a little boy. “Do you like me, Beau?” I tease, shaking his elbow.

He looks up and knots his arms behind my lower back, easing me against the seat and climbing on top of me. “What do you think?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” I say. “It matters what you think.”

“I’m not good with words, Natalie.”

“Try.”

“You remember that night on the football field?” I nod. “I want you more now than I did then, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

“You like me.”

“I like you,” he says softly.

“You want me,” I whisper.

“Everywhere,” he says, “all the time.”

It’s the same look he gave me when I asked him what he wanted in the dance studio: serious, almost sad. I reach up to trace the lines of his face, committing each to memory. “I want you too,” I tell him. “Everywhere, all the time.”

His eyes dip, his arms tighten, and his voice drops into a whisper. “Natalie . . .”

“You need sleep.”

“I need you.”

A momentary battle rages inside my head, and then I make one of those choices that isn’t
really
a choice. “Let’s go inside,” I say.

We hurry to get out of the car, leaving it parked on the street, and take off down the dark cul-de-sac, humidity sheening us in sweat by the time we reach the porch. I climb up first to let myself in through the open window, and then turn back. I can’t see Beau in the yard below, so he must already be on the porch railing. I wait for a few seconds of silence, but he doesn’t emerge over the side of the porch roof.

“Beau?” I hiss into the night, disrupting the cricket song. I listen for an answer, but none comes. After the longest minute of my life, I scramble back onto the porch roof to see what’s taking so long. I lean out over the ledge and gaze down into the yard, but I find no sign of him. “Beau,” I whisper again, a bit louder.

No response but the hoot of an owl.

I scurry back down to the porch railing and drop down into the yard, scanning the cul-de-sac. “Beau?” I say again, louder still. My heart is wild. Something’s wrong.

He must’ve slipped back into his world.

I jog up the street to the curb where he left his truck, but it’s gone. I spin in place, searching for any of the flickers of change that have become my norm. “Beau,” I call again.
“Beau.”

I close my eyes and try to grasp at the fragments of song drifting through my mind.

I feel nothing. Hear nothing.

“There once were four ghosts,” Grandmother said, “and they lived in four houses beneath the ground, each one deeper than the last.

“There was a woman from a nearby tribe, whose father had died, and she went to his grave and lay on it and wept for four days. But on the fourth day, she heard a voice from below the earth. ‘Crying woman,’ the voice said, ‘Come downward.’

“So she jumped up and followed the voice of the ghost downward through the earth until she reached a house called Hemlock-Leaves-on-Back. She went inside and saw there an old woman in the corner, near the fire. The old woman said, ‘Sit down and eat.’ Then she passed the crying woman dried salmon.

“But before the crying woman could take the food, another person came in and led her to the next house below, Maggots-on-Bark-on-Ground. Here again she saw an old woman beside a fire, who appeared identical to the woman in the first house. This old woman also offered the crying woman something to eat, and again, before the crying woman could take it, another guide appeared and said, ‘Come to the house of the Place-of-Mouth-Showing-on-Ground,’ and the crying woman followed.

“As before, she saw an identical old woman preparing meat beside the fire. As before, the crying woman was interrupted by another guide before she could take the food. ‘Come to Place-of-Never-Return,’ the guide said, and led the crying woman deeper into the earth and to the next house.

“When she entered this time, though, the crying woman saw her father sitting beside the fire, and he became angry at the sight of her. ‘Why have you come here?’ he shouted at her. ‘Whoever enters the first three houses may return, but from this place there is no return! Do not accept the food of the ghosts, and return home at once! We will sing, so the tribe will hear and come for you.’

“Her father called to the guide who had brought the crying woman there and begged that he return her at once to the land of the living. And so the guide carried her back up to the grave tree on a board, where she lay like one dead, and he sang as her father had said, and the tribe heard the song and came to the tree where the man was buried. But though they saw the board and heard the singing voice, the people could not see the girl lying beneath the tree.”

I waited for a long time, though by then, I was fifteen and knew one of Grandmother’s endings when I heard one. “That’s it?” I said finally.

“That’s it,” she told me.

I sat in bed, turning the story over in my mind, trying to make sense of it. Several times I thought I’d caught the meaning, but then it would slip away again. “Sometimes,” I told her, “when you tell these stories, I
feel
them.”

“How so?” she asked, narrowing her dark eyes.

“Like, I almost remember them. Like they happened to me. Like they’re more real than my actual life, only I can’t quite pin them down. Does that make any sense?”

“No,” she said bluntly. “But I know what you mean. I feel that too.”

“The world doesn’t feel right,” I said, yawning. Sleep was overtaking me, and my mind began to chatter half-formed thoughts, things I couldn’t fully understand.

“We’re hostages, Natalie,” Grandmother said softly.

“Hostages?”

“We’re living on our own land, but it’ll never be ours again. We answer to a government that doesn’t acknowledge that
we’re many nations—nations they bought from people who had no right to the land in the first place. We’re surrounded by people who forget we exist except when they read about our downfall in their history books, as if we aren’t still here, occupied, waiting for an ending that, after five hundred years, we know will never come. Trying to learn how to live in and belong to two worlds at once. There’s a separation between us and everything around us. We can’t get close enough to it, no matter how hard we try. You and I, we feel that distance every moment of every day. In a way, we’re ghosts already. These stories are the thread that connects us to the world that came before us, a world we’ll never see but always dream about.”

“Well, that’s a cheery outlook.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes the most beautiful moments in our lives are things that hurt badly at the time. We only see them for what they really were when we stand at the very end and look back.”

“You’re particularly cryptic tonight,” I said.

“I feel particularly old tonight, Natalie. Age makes one think.”

“About?”

After a long pause, she said, “Regret.”

I watched her eyes glaze over in thought. “Grandmother?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you know my mother?” I asked. “My biological one, I mean.”

“Of course,” she said. “I know everyone you know, and many people you don’t.”

I steeled myself before asking, “Do you know . . . why?”

Grandmother fixed her eyes on me and rubbed at her chin. “Why she left you?”

I nodded.

“I understand her decision as well as she does, but these things are rarely simple.”

“She was young.”

Grandmother nodded. “And poor.”

“And unhappy.”

“Very,” Grandmother said.

“Will I ever meet her?” I asked. “Does she think about me?”

“She thinks about you every day,” Grandmother assured me. “And someday, you may very well meet her.”

“But you can’t say for sure?”

Grandmother hesitated, then shook her head. “The future’s rarely certain, Natalie. All we ever have is the present.”

But my present might already be over. He could be trapped in my past.