Page 51
I could leave now. There are reasons why I should. There are reasons to stay, too. I take my time, touching things, moving through the small rooms of his life to see what he keeps. And he does keep things. Things no one should have. I go through pictures, grainy but with enough detail to know what I’m looking at.
Now I can’t leave.
He burns wood for warmth, the iron stove in the center room emitting heat like a wall that I move through as I walk toward it. There’s a small shovel for cleaning out ash, leaning against the stove, cocked toward me as if in invitation.
It really shouldn’t be this easy.
When I dump the embers in his lap, his clothing ignites. His eyes fly open, but he does not see me. There is only confusion, a lack of comprehension so great that it trumps even the pain. The elasticized band of his underwear liquefies and runs across his skin, the tiny hairs on his belly flaming for a brief fiery moment before becoming ash.
His hands go immediately to the pain, wanting to cup it and cover the hurt, but there is no comfort in the movement. Blisters open and break in a moment and his sleeves catch, fire creeping up his arms as he staggers to his feet. He wants to run now—the second instinctive reaction to pain—but he doesn’t know where to go and the coffee table is in his way, cracking against his shins hard enough to break skin, but even that does not stop him as he bolts.
He heads for the bedroom, liquid flame lighting the carpet in his wake as parts of his sweater drip to the floor. That room calls to him even as he burns, a black hole that he flies toward, his melting hands providing mutual destruction for the pictures I laid out on the bed. I don’t follow, because I don’t need to see.
I can hear.
Animals die in the woods all the time. I’ve heard their screams, startlingly human as they fight something stronger, faster, bigger. But there’s a final moment when they know the battle is lost, when the prey goes still and accepts fate, a passive agreement with the predator that they have been bested.
That silence follows the smoke down the hallway, and I know it’s over. The small fires that dropped around him have grown, licking up the carpet fibers and now searching for more.
They creep toward me and I’ve spent too much time watching. I head for the door, my eyes watering against the smoke and my throat tightening against the fumes of the smoldering carpet. Yet I can’t move fast because there’s an unfamiliar weight in my stomach and I fight against it as I hit the cold, clear air, my feet finally picking up speed as I run down the driveway, to the road, past the woods, places I can’t leave footprints.
What was his home is now a pillar of smoke, bits of ash falling from the sky, all that’s left of any number of horrific acts. But that’s not what puts me on my knees. That’s not what makes me vomit, the steam from it rising back up in my face as I retch again and again.
The weight in my gut is gone, leaving behind a dark pit and strained muscles. I lie back in the snow, my body quivering. I don’t know what to do, for the first time in a long time. I don’t know what I think.
Because that empty space inside me, it feels like guilt.
42. JACK
Sound travels when the air is freezing. Even with the storm windows I can hear a train, though the tracks are so far away I can’t see the lights. Its thrum supersedes the constant sound of the breeze moving through the pines near the house, the low grunt of a deer that had been passing through the yard as it sees something it doesn’t like. I hear it bolt, hooves breaking through the frozen snow as it flees.
I can’t sleep, and it’s got nothing to do with noises. I’ve been hearing these things my whole life, same as I’ve been staring at this crack in the ceiling my whole life. For some people the constant things are reassurance; they find comfort in the fact that nothing ever changes. But I’m not like that, and right now I hate the crack in my ceiling, I hate the train for existing, and I especially hate the wind for moving the pines outside and reminding me that I’m going to have to go back to the clearing and get all the stupid fucking decorations off that tree.
I curl my fist under my head, fighting the urge to punch the wall. I told Alex that I love her, right after explaining about Sara’s uncle. Her eyes did the right thing, lit up as bright as the snow all around us. But her mouth was all wrong, still fused shut with an inexpressible anger. She actually said thank you, which was worse than saying nothing at all. We stared at each other for a few seconds after that, another awkward silence like the one after she attacked Ray Parsons descending around us.
I hate not knowing what to say to Alex, and of course here in my bed I’ve come up with all kinds of great things, words that would’ve smoothed over my bad timing and loosened some of the muscles around her lips. But those things didn’t come to me when I needed them, so we walked back to the church, Alex with her hands in her pockets, eyes on the ground and her face as cold as the wind. Peekay’d had too much to drink and Alex drove her home, giving me a halfhearted wave as she got into the car.
The train is gone, taking its vibrant hum with it. I’m left with the wind and the crack on my ceiling and all the things I could’ve done differently tonight when there’s a tap on my window. I ignore it, focused on the crack, wondering if there’s any old caulk out in the garage, and if I can sneak out and get it without my parents wondering what the hell I’m doing fixing my ceiling at four in the morning.
The sound comes again, followed quickly by another, more insistent. I roll over and push the curtain aside to see Alex standing in the driveway, arm pulled back to throw another stone. I wave to her and she drops it, motioning for me.
I know how to dress quickly and quietly, know which spots on the stairs creak loudly, and how to open the screen door just right without making a sound. But I don’t know how to do any of these things with my heart beating so hard I can see it in my chest, or with my blood rushing so fast there are dark corners in my vision.
It’s the sloppiest sneaking out I’ve ever done, but I don’t care. If Alex is standing in my yard in the middle of the night it means she thinks things were unsaid too, and maybe she couldn’t sleep either. Maybe she’s been lying on her bed staring at her ceiling thinking about me, and that’s exactly what I’ll tell Mom and Dad if they wake up.
Some things are too important to wait.
I’m outside, the snow tumbling over the sides of my shoes and slipping down against my bare skin because I didn’t take the time to put on socks. Alex comes toward me, hands out, and I take them, our freezing skin meeting.
“Hey,” she says, her voice harsh and scratchy. Her face is streaked with frozen tears, her cheeks stretched and hard underneath them. Her eyelashes are stuck together, dark icicles framing red-rimmed eyes.
“Alex, what are you doing?” I put my hands on her face, rubbing my thumbs over the salt left behind there. It chafes away, blowing into the breeze and leaving redness behind. Her whole face is stiff in my hands and I try to pull her into me for heat but she pushes away.
“I need to talk to you,” she says, her voice dark and unfamiliar.
I take a step back. I know this tone; I’ve seen these movements. Seen them in Mom when we lost Grandpa, in Park when he found out his little sister had cancer. Physical pain we reach for, protect, treat. Pain that comes from the inside we try to push out, working it free in little worrying movements of the hands, eyes that dart everywhere, as if expending all the energy inside will help mine down to the pain, expose it and drag it out into the open, out where someone else can see it and help kill it.
Alex is in pain; it’s written everywhere. Every muscle she has is fluttering. She’s like a wild animal ready to bolt, but with nowhere to go. She knows the hurt is inside and running won’t help, but she came to me—to me—and there’s enough pride attached to that that I feel good. And that makes me feel terrible, because my girlfriend is having a breakdown.
