This Raging Light (15 page)

“Sorry,” she says. “What I mean is that, when we were little, he wasn't all uptight like the other dads.”

“I guess. He's kind of cool in a non-dad way.”

“I always thought he was kind of hot, actually.”

“Oh, ewwwwwwww.”

“I mean, his hot value has definitely diminished since he did what he did, but I'm just saying. When we were little, I was jealous. Your dad played guitar—”

“Bass,” I say.

“Okay, bass. And he skated. What other dad do you know who can do tricks on a skateboard?”

“It's the Cali in him. Or maybe the boy.”

“Like I said, it was kind of hot.”

Yuck. Enough of that.

“Yours seems pretty great,” I say. “He does normal dad stuff. Plays ball, all that.”

“Works all the time. Always has. Pokes his head out to make an I-don't-want-to-get-my-ass-left appearance. Leaves my mom to do everything around the house. She makes like she doesn't care, but I know she does. It has to smart. I think that's why she makes everything about us.”

“At least he doesn't crumble at the first sign of stress.”

“Yeah,” she says. “But did you ever think about what it means to raise a family?”

“Like the pressure or something?”

“Did you ever think human beings aren't really cut out for it?”

“Maybe.”

“‘What man is such a coward he would rather not fall once than stand forever tottering?' Most people totter their whole lives. They never let themselves fall, never take the hit. They just go along, trying to do what they think they're supposed to. They never try to find out what's true for them, because that would mean being brave in a way people aren't.”

“Do you think you are?”

“What?”

“A coward.”

“Sometimes, I guess. I try not to be. What about you?”

I think about Digby. What we've been doing. How we've been doing it. Elaine. All those kisses swirl in me, and I'm honestly not sure whether everything I've done with Digby makes me brave or cowardly. Which is it when you're following your heart?

What I would say if I could:
Light, he's like the light. He put his hand on my arm and I can still feel it, Eden. We ate cheesesteaks. He remembered my favorite food. He played me music. He has the most perfect lips ever, like silk. He kisses me like home. When he helps me, it's the best help. When he's gone, I'm the most alone.

I drop her finger. “I'm so fucked.”

“Wow, Fred's has done wonders for your vocabulary, just as I predicted.”

“I'm being serious. Don't make jokes.” I dig out a little shard of ice from next to me, toss it into the river. “Isn't it crazy that with my whole life in pieces, it's your brother giving me the most trouble?”

She watches me for a long time. “He won't leave her easy, you know.”

I nod.

“They have plans, a life they've been figuring out. They're going to school together next year if they both get in. They may have gotten a little . . . disconnected . . . but change costs him.”

“Change costs everyone, Eden. And what if it's the truth for him? What if
I'm
the truth for him? Would he really let that go out of fear, because he doesn't want to hurt anyone?”

“The devil you know, Lu. He needs to know what to expect.”

“Because he's a coward?”

“Because he's good. A person like Digby needs a steady thing.”

And I am not steady.

I snort, because if I don't, I'll just start crying.

“Really,” she says. “The world is a little much for him. The way people are. He's all ripped up that he's doing this to her. Doesn't know which way is up. He's just spinning and spinning in circles. And he loves her, you know? A lot.”

“He talks to you about it?”

“Why do you think I've been staying away from you?”

“Because you were mad?”

“Oh, Lulu. No. Not really. That night you got the bloody nose, when you went all psycho, I saw how he was looking at you, how he was so ready to compromise everything for you. I love you so much, and I wasn't even ready to do that. I don't want to be caught between the two of you. This is a mess, and he's my twin. The only person who comes before you. Once I saw that he was crazy about you, I had to pick.” She kicks at her rock with her ankle boots. “He's so confused. I've never seen him like this before. Don't break him, Lu,” she says. “This thing that's between you? It's messing him up. He's hobbled by his own good heart.”

I nod again, feel like the ground is getting so far away, think about Dad, about how he broke. Maybe we're all breakable. It's just a question of what breaks us.

“You love him?” she asks. “Really?”

I don't see the point in denying it. “Completely.”

“Then the best thing you can do for him is let him go. You're already stuck somewhere too messy to recover from.”

“He said that?”

“I'm saying that.”

“And they'll just go on like normal?”

She shrugs. “You'll find someone else, you know. I heard somewhere that there are ten thousand people on earth that each of us can be compatible with. He's not the only one.”

Everything in me wants to protest. I don't want to find another person. I want Digby. And she knows, she knows there's only one of him.

“You've got enough to deal with without him,” she says. “Right now, you have to rage.”

I've got nothing without him. Nothing. Nothing but rage. But I'm tired of being a human respirator, of Digby being my only oxygen. It can't be good. Not for anyone.

She pulls her phone out of her leather and looks at the time. “Damn.”

“Eden,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“I'm really sorry about the ballet thing. You should keep on.”

“Oh, I will. Just now I know it's not going to do me any good.” She squints at me. “And don't try to tell me any different. Denial is for losers. Face your crap and move on. Otherwise you'll get old and depressed and turn into a scary pod person whose most pressing issue in life is when they get to trade in the can of Dr Pepper for the can of Bud.”

I laugh.

“It's true,” she says. “Look around.” She smashes out her cigarette and leaves it on the rock.

I pick it up, and as I do she stretches up tall, puts her hands above her head like she's about to do a pirouette, and her heel slips on a little bit of ice right next to our rock. How her foot is in just the wrong place, and how she loses her footing and wobbles.

Tottering now.

She doesn't recover. She keeps falling. There's no tread on her shoes and both legs are out from under her and
thunk
and Eden hits her head hard on the pointy part of our rock.

Quick stand to catch her. She's already down.
Reach for me,
I say with my hand. She doesn't. She's limp. Slides down a slick sheet of ice. I am colder and hotter. I reach for her, and she is already gone all the way away from me.

Everything is quiet but the rushing water, whose currents are more powerful than the cold.

Eden is in the water before I know what's happening, and her eyes are closed and her hair is floating all around her.

Ophelia.

I am running. I don't slip on the ice. Not once, not even a little. Splashing down into the water, and it is like a knife that stabs me everywhere at once, ten katrillion needles slicing through my skin. I have to get out of this water. I have to get farther in, get to her. I kick off my boots under the water. She is already far away, floating silent. I scream and I scream again and it just goes into nothing.

My scream gets sucked up by the night's black.

I want my sword and my shield, and I want to save Eden because she is love for me now, but I don't have those things, and how would they help me fight water? I could see everything before and now I can't see Eden at all. She's going around the bend and I. Will. Catch. Her. Then the river runs through me, pushes me to her. I might drown and I am all Wren has and I can't see Eden anymore and then I have her. I have Eden by the collar on her leather jacket. I scream and hold on to her and nobody can hear me and my throat hurts. I drag and I drag, river fighting me now, and I pull until I am at rocks. Slip. Ice. Rock. Grab. Got. I have a rock and I pull so hard and my body is numb and Wren is home alone and I yank. Get her out. No breath.

My phone.

Where is it?

I can't call the police, the ambulance.

I am doing everything.

Everything wrong.

I am shaking, shaking, and I unzip her jacket, wrench Digby's keys out of her inside pocket, try to pull her with me and there's no way. I climb the bank and run, now slipping on ice with no shoes, until I hit the path out to the street, my body burning cold. It is so familiar. I know every step, every car parked on the road. I run to the Beast, but my hands are shaking too hard, I would never make it to the police station. Too far. Which house to go to?

Eden alone. Wren alone. Me alone.

Digby.

This door. This door belongs to the lady who gardens all day in the summer in a big pink hat. I bang with my whole body. I bang my fist under the sign that says
IF THE HOUSE BURNS DOWN, PLEASE SAVE THE CAT.
It shows a cat reading a book, and that makes me shake harder. The door takes a million years to open.

The lady answers, and she is wearing a pink robe the same color as her hat and she says oh my god as she opens the door and I am shaking and I put my wet hands on her and my body falls into her softness and I shudder call, call, call 911. Please. My friend, my best friend is dying. My best friend hit her head on a rock and she is dying.

Please, I am screaming with everything I have into her pink face, and the shoulder of her pink robe, so she will hear me, so someone will finally hear. Call.

Coca-Cola went to town

Diet Pepsi shot him down

I squeeze Wren.

The respirator machine pumping air into Eden's lungs goes
shakaaaawah, shakaaaawah, shakawaaaah,
and her head is covered in white gauze. They drilled holes in her skull to relieve the pressure from the swelling, but she didn't wake up. She's in a coma, no permanent brain damage according to what they gathered from the scans, and now we wait.

Janie brought me clothes and shoes after she took Digby to pick up his truck, so I am Eden head to toe.

Digby wraps an arm around me, all the trouble between us tossed to the side. We're there at the bedside, Digby, Wren, and me. Janie and John are somewhere talking to people about important things. Thoughts are hard to catch. Everything drifts. My whole chest is an ache. Flowers are starting to come in, adding color and taking away space.

“Why don't you go and have some food at the house?” Janie says when she gets back.

John has his arm around her waist. I don't think I've ever seen them that way, hugged together.

“Don't worry, Janie, she'll wake up,” Wren says, watching Eden, who looks so, so small under a pink blanket. She would hate that blanket. I hate that blanket. I don't think I will ever like pink again. “She's strong.”

“Yes, honey, she is strong,” Janie says, “but even so . . .”

“No,” Wren says. “Not like regular people. She's superstrong.”

Janie starts to cry.

After I get some weekend girl named Delaney to cover my shift at Fred's, we go to Eden's house for dinner, like Janie said. She steers me into the Beast with Digby. The gearshift goes up to first. Down to second. Up to third. We rumble into Digby's driveway, John right behind us in his shiny black truck. How has a day passed, when the last one never went anywhere? How am I still awake? I'm so tired, I can barely feel my feet, and I want to go lie down on Eden's bed and shove my face into her blankets. I want to pull Digby into a corner with me and kiss him so I know I'm still here. All of that wanting is as wrong as everything else, so I sit at the dinner table instead.

Eden's house is all full of casseroles and pies, and it's only been a few hours.
Heat at 350° for 45 minutes,
says the crumpled note in the middle of the table. The curly writing was carefully done, like someone took care with those few words. Like they thought, maybe my old family recipe for lasagna can take a little bite out of your pain.

I keep waiting for someone to yell at me, but no one does. They should, though. No one eats except Wren, who is in front of the TV, watching
Adventure Time.
Gooey, cheesy lasagna coagulates around mushrooms and ground beef in the middle of the table and on all of our plates, and we all just sit there. Me, Digby, and John. There are too many empty chairs. The table is too big. BC is turning circles around himself like he has no place to be. No one is talking. You could hear chewing if anyone were eating. It's so quiet except for Wren's cartoon, and even that is absorbed into the furniture, the way my screaming got sucked into the water.

And then the person with the pillow is pushing all the way down with big, evil hands. Huge sounds are about to come out of me. It can't happen now, not when these people are waiting and waiting. The chair jerks when I slide up.

I barely make it down the hall to the bathroom before it comes, wheezing like my lungs are trying to climb out of my body. The whole thing is too loud, and I flip on the switch that runs the fan, and turn on the water. I even flush the toilet, and all the while I am holding on to the side of the sink, waiting for it to stop, but it doesn't. It just keeps coming, but there are no tears and everything gets very far away and prickly. And then I am throwing up all the nothing inside my stomach. I taste tequila and the smoke from Eden's cigarette, like time in reverse, and then it's just bile, just trickles of more nothing. I wipe my mouth and stand up straight.