Page 36
This is what bothers me.
Jack can choose not to let me in, and I will know by the time his voice mail picks up that the decision has been made, and I will know why. Part of me will understand. Part of me knows that I should have never been admitted, that I should not be walking among these people. People who are able to make friends easily because they don’t first assume everyone is a threat. People who can get through a party without tearing a man’s face off.
I am a wolf that my sister kept in a cage, until her hand was removed. I have been out, curious as I wake up from a lethargic solitude, self-enforced because I know I don’t belong here. It’s not safe for me to be out, but they rattled my cage. First Claire and then Jack. And now I’m awake, deviating from the paths I created in order to remain stable. I’m out, and awake, and afraid I won’t be easily put back in.
It’s not the sheep that call to me, but the other wolves. I want to run with them, so that I may tear out their throats when they threaten my flock. But I can’t return to the sheep with blood on my breath; they will shy away from me.
Even when I was a child they knew.
I remember the only family reunion my mother ever took us to, the first and last time we met our cousins from her side. One of my male cousins had taken my doll and stripped her, taunting me with her naked body high above his head while I tried to reach, red-faced and shouting. Anna put an end to it before I was pushed too far, snatching it back and redressing her, assuring me everything was okay.
But everything was not okay.
I waited until everyone was asleep, our pleasantly warm child bodies relaxed in the blue light of the television, the dull undertones of the adults’ conversation reaching us from the outside deck. My cousin was out cold, his head thrown back against the couch, a snore emanating from him.
Until I punched him in the throat.
Lights came on and accusations flew once he had his breath, the adults bringing a cloud of alcohol fumes and confusion in with them as he tried to explain what had happened, the pointing finger always returning to me. One woman kept insisting it wasn’t possible. I was too little. Too cute.
But the other children knew, with their survival instincts still fresh on them, not tempered by assumptions. Anna knew. My parents knew, an understanding shared in a glance that carried over into a long, silent car ride home, my fully dressed doll belted in safely by my side, the wolf in me satiated.
We never went to another reunion.
And so I’m waiting for another rejection, another affirmation that I don’t belong among these people. That it’s not safe for me to be here. The wolf in me is expecting it.
But another part of me will die a little bit when that happens. The part that enjoyed the easy familiarity of borrowing Claire’s ill-fitting clothes. The part that likes the way Jack’s eyes stay on me, even in a crowded room.
I’ve spent an hour staring at my phone, trying to decide which of those is the better part. Which of those is really me. And if there’s any way that I can be both.
When he answers it’s like the better half of me explodes into a thousand pieces of light, hope spreading through me to touch places that can’t recall the feeling.
“Hey,” he says, and I love the casualness of his tone, like this isn’t the first time I’ve ever called him, like there’s no reason for either one of us to be nervous. And suddenly I’m not.
I don’t have many words inside me. All I know is that I like being with him and I want to be exactly that right now, and I can think of only one way to make that a reality.
“Do you like to run?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “In every sport I play running is a punishment, so it’s kinda hard to like it. I mean, I would run if something was chasing me, though.”
“Would you run if I was chasing you?” I ask, because I’m still trying to create this scenario where we’re together, and I don’t do many things that I can invite other people to do with me.
“If you were chasing me I would definitely not run,” he says, and I’m laughing because this is so much easier than I expected.
“How about if we were running side by side?” I ask.
“That I can do.”
28. JACK
We are running.
When Alex asked if I’d meet her at the track, I said yes without caring about the temperature, or that it’s supposed to snow, or that it was going to be dark in just a few hours—a fact Mom yelled after me as I rushed out the door, grabbing my coat. Alex was leaning against her car when I got to the school and we took a few laps without talking, our legs finding the same stride perfectly comfortable as we looped once, twice, and then again, our footfalls still the only sound passing between us.
When she breaks away from the track and shoots for a path into the woods I go with her, keeping the quiet intact. The path meets a gravel road and she follows it, me taking a wider stride for the beat of a second to draw alongside her. The road arcs slightly under our feet, the rise not visible to the eye but felt in the burn of my calves. I toss a glance sideways but she is lost in movement, brow furrowed and cheeks a blazing red from the cold.
The woods suddenly fall away on our right and she nudges my shoulder with her own, the first contact we’ve had the whole time. I follow her unspoken instruction, taking the grass-covered drive that leads to the last thing I expected to see.
A graveyard.
