‘So, how’s your stalker?’ Alisha changed the subject. I frowned. ‘You know, that cute guy who’s always in here.’
‘His name is Ethan and he’s not a stalker,’ I corrected her. I looked away, wiping down the counter. ‘We actually went out last night.’
‘What?’ Alisha jolted upright. ‘And you’re telling me now?’
I shrugged. ‘It wasn’t a big deal. We went to a movie.’
‘That’s it?’ Alisha demanded.
‘It was fun, I guess,’ I offered.
Alisha looked at me for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Honestly, Chloe. Sometimes I don’t understand you at all.’
I didn’t reply. I knew I was supposed to call her with breathless gossip, poring over Ethan’s texts, but the truth was, I didn’t feel all that breathless, not now the cloud of hormones from last night had ebbed away. Ethan was nice. It had been a welcome distraction, but feigning excitement would only make me feel like I was putting on a show: play-acting at teen girl swooning, when the truth was far more difficult than that.
The diner bell sounded, distracting Alisha. She looked around then spun back, making a face at me as a girl from our class strode in. Crystal Keller, one of the girls who partied out by the lake. She’d barely showed up in school, slouched in the back of every class, and now, she made a beeline for the back, wearing ratty tight cut-offs and clumpy boots, her bleached hair showing dark at the roots.
‘Restrooms are for customers only,’ I called after her. Crystal ignored me, the bathroom door slamming shut.
Alisha gave me a look. ‘I can’t believe she graduated,’ she murmured. ‘Not that she’ll do anything now. Except work in the Quick-Stop, get knocked up and have three kids by the time she’s twenty.’
‘’Lish,’ I warned her, glancing towards the bathroom.
‘What? We both know it’s true.’ She yawned, ‘I heard she fucked two guys on the football team at a party last month, and she let them film it.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘That’s what they’re saying.’ Alisha shrugged, as if she couldn’t be held responsible for rumours and gossip.
The bathroom door swung open again. Crystal emerged, this time in a different shirt – a black T-shirt with a giant tongue on the front. It was ripped up in front, showing her bra straps, hot pink, peeking from underneath.
‘Real classy,’ Alisha murmured as she passed us by. If Crystal heard us, she didn’t let on. She walked out of the diner without a backwards glance.
Alisha watched her go, a mixture of fascination and smugness on her face. ‘I’m so glad I’m getting out of this town.’
My cellphone rang before I could reply. I fished it out, wondering if it was another message from Ethan, but instead the display showed an unknown number.
‘What did I say about those things?’ Loretta called, from where she was tallying receipts in a corner booth. ‘You don’t know what kind of damage they’re doing to your brain. Radiation waves, and all sorts.’
‘Sorry!’ I moved to the side to answer. I couldn’t hear the other voice for a moment, and had to cup my hand around my ear to listen. ‘Sorry, who is this?’
‘It’s Beverly, from your mom’s office.’ The voice was tense. I froze. ‘You need to come pick her up.’
I rode as fast as I could, but it still took forty-five minutes to get out to the hospital. I left my bike unlocked by the back entrance and hurried inside through the labyrinth of hallways to the second-floor offices. Mom had always complained they crammed them into such a small department, barely big enough to fit the reams of paperwork all the insurance companies demanded. Now, I practically skidded down the hall to her office, ignoring the looks from the staff as I passed.
‘Mom?’ I threw open the door. Her colleague, Beverly, was there, and Mom – God, Mom -– was crying in the corner, huddled on the floor with her legs splayed out under her body. ‘What happened?’ I demanded. ‘Did she fall? What’s wrong?’
‘Shh.’ Beverly quickly moved to close the door behind her, sending an anxious look out into the hall. ‘I don’t know what happened, someone called me in, said they found her like this. She won’t stop.’
‘Mom?’ I approached her gently. I crouched, so our eyes were level. ‘Are you OK? Are you feeling alright?’
Mom didn’t pause for breath. She was weeping, full-out, her body shaking with sobs. I stared at her, horrified. Her makeup was smeared in desperate streaks but, more than that, she looked like a stranger, as if her face had been smudged out of alignment, put back together all wrong. She didn’t even look at me, she just kept crying in great ugly gasps.
Fear settled around me, ice cold.
‘They wanted to have Psych up,’ Beverly added, sounding concerned. She was a squat woman, all bright lipstick and spider’s legs mascara. ‘Do an evaluation, maybe give her something to sedate her—’
‘No!’ I choked out the word. ‘She’ll be fine. Thanks for calling me.’ I forced myself to act calm. ‘I’ve got it from here.’
Beverly didn’t move.
‘I said, I’ve got it,’ I insisted, digging my nails into my palms to keep from shaking. I pasted on a smile. ‘You’ve done so much already. Don’t you need to get back to work?’
Beverly took a breath and then beckoned me outside the room. ‘About that . . . ’ She paused, reluctant in the hallway. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to let her go. She’s missed so much already, and if she’s not coming back . . . I need someone I can rely on.’
‘Fine.’ The word was a lie, but I needed to get her out of there. ‘Whatever you want. I get it.’ I took a long breath and managed to meet Beverly’s eyes. ‘Now, can you leave us please?’ I was shocked at how reasonable I sounded. ‘I should really get her home.’
‘Of course.’ Beverly’s head bobbed. ‘Call me, OK? Let me know how she’s doing.’
She walked away and I stepped back into the room: left alone with the weeping stranger who used to be my mother.
I swallowed. Panic threatened, welling up like a dark tide inside me, but I forced it back with shaking breaths. ‘Come on.’ I took Mom’s hand, limp. ‘We need to go now.’
Mom didn’t move. She just lay there, her body heaving, gasping for air in a limitless flood of tears.
I tried to loop my arm around her waist and lift her to her feet, but she didn’t move.
‘Please,’ I whispered, helpless. ‘Let’s just go home.’
There was no reply. It was like she didn’t even know I was there. She was making animal noises, raw and desperate, as if the surface of herself had cracked, shattered, leaving nothing but this foreign weeping thing on the floor.
‘Mom!’ My voice broke. I tried lifting her again, ungainly, not trying to be gentle any more, but I barely made it a few paces before she slid from my grasp and slowly crumpled back to the ground.
I stood, stranded in the centre of the room. The panic was beating down on me now, a thick flock of fear. Voices came from the hall, friendly and carefree, and I listened to them pass, wondering how they could be so close and so far away at the same time: two realities spinning on the same axis, but a thousand miles apart.
A minute passed, the clock on the desk counting past the seconds.
She would stop crying in sixty seconds, I told myself. In forty. Thirty.
Please.
But the countdown ended, and the sobbing didn’t stop. I stayed there, paralysed. I didn’t know what to do. How could I? Beverly had mentioned psych consults and sedatives, but that would only make it worse, bare our ugly family wreckage to the world. I didn’t want Alisha knowing, didn’t want the sheriff’s sympathies.
Do something. Anything.
I wrenched myself out of indecision, grabbed my phone and dialled.
Ethan was there in twenty minutes. I heard a tap, uncertain on the door, then he edged it open.
‘Chloe?’ He paused there, the question fading on his lips as he looked from me, to my mother, and back agai
n.
‘I can’t lift her,’ I said, helpless. ‘I need to get her home, but she won’t move. I can’t do it.’
Ethan didn’t hesitate. He strode over to the corner and crouched down in front of her. ‘I’m Ethan,’ he said, his voice clear and even. ‘I’m a friend of Chloe’s. Will you let me help you up?’
Mom slowly opened her eyes. The weeping had stopped, thank God. ‘Chloe?’ she whispered, her eyes darting around.
‘I’m right here, Mom.’ I swallowed back the frustration in my voice and moved to her other side. ‘We’re going to get you home and into bed. Everything will be OK.’
Mom paused, then gave a weak nod.
‘Hold on around my neck,’ Ethan instructed her. He put one arm around her waist, and the other under her knees, and lifted her clear off the floor. He straightened up, and I leaped to get the door. I looked behind us, remembering to grab Mom’s purse and keys before following them out and down the hallway.
It was quiet, with only a handful of people around to gawk and stare as Ethan strode towards the elevator, me trailing behind. He carried Mom easily. Too easily. Her sleeve fell, loose, and I saw with a pang of guilt how skinny her clothes fitted; a gap at her waist, bony collarbone protruding above her collar.
I hadn’t noticed, all this time, the weight dropping off. I’d cleared away her uneaten plates, annoyed at the waste of effort, not seeing her starving herself. I should have noticed. I should have taken better care.
Ethan backed carefully out of the exit doors. His truck was parked up by the sidewalk, and he carefully settled Mom in the front seat.
‘I can get her car later.’ I tried to think of what I might be missing.
‘You rode here?’ Ethan asked. I nodded over to where I’d left my bike and he swung it into the flatbed with barely a pause for breath.
‘I . . . ’ I felt like I should say something, explain somehow, but nothing came out.
Ethan touched my arm lightly. His eyes were warm. ‘Let’s just get you home.’
The sympathy in his voice was too much, and I almost let out a sob, but instead I gave a sharp nod and scrambled up into the front cab on the other side of Mom.
We drove home that way: Ethan at the wheel, Mom between us, and me holding her up, the thin body slumped against me. Now that the immediate crisis was over, I felt a slow flush of shame winding up my spine. I hated that Ethan had seen us like this: Mom, so broken, and me, helpless and weak. He was kind enough to humour us and act as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in picking my mother off the floor like some drunk or homeless woman in the street, but I knew he must be silently judging us with every mile that sped past.
Back at the house, Ethan carried Mom up to the bedroom. I settled her in bed, pulling the covers up around her and drawing the curtains, shadowing her in the dark.
I walked Ethan downstairs, still feeling the flush of humiliation.
‘Chloe—’ he started, turning to face me by the doorway.
I cut him off. ‘Thank you. I . . . I don’t know what to say. Thanks, I mean it.’ I opened the door, waiting for him to leave.
Ethan looked at me but, worse than any judgment in his blue eyes, I saw pity instead. ‘Is there someone you can call?’ he asked gently.
I shook my head sharply. ‘We’ll be fine.’ I lied again.
He paused. ‘I know it’s not my business, but, that, back there? That isn’t fine.’
‘I pushed her too hard,’ I argued firmly. ‘She wasn’t ready. It was my fault. She just needs more time.’
Ethan looked as if he wanted to argue.
‘I should get back to her,’ I said quickly, looking away. ‘And you’re missing work.’
Ethan sighed, reluctant. ‘Call me, if you need anything.’
‘We’ll be fine,’ I repeated, and again, I was shocked at how sincere my voice sounded, as if I really believed it. Ethan hovered in the doorway a moment more, then awkwardly bobbed in and kissed my cheek.
‘Goodbye.’ He smiled hesitantly, then he walked away.
I shut the door behind him and sank back against it. I could still smell the faint scent of his deodorant or aftershave – something fresh and citrus. I’d noticed it last night, on our date.
Last night . . .
I felt a desperate laugh rise up in my chest. I’d thought I could leave all this behind. It seemed so naive to remember, kicking my feet up on Ethan’s dashboard, holding hands like kids in the movie theatre, kissing until midnight.
Now is the time to put away childish things . . .
I didn’t know where the saying came from, but it echoed in my head as I walked down the hall and into the small room off the den that Dad had used as an office. It was like the rest of the house now, with half-empty shelves and spaces where he used to be, but I forced myself to go through the box files and drawers in turn, assembling what was left of the paperwork; old bills, receipts and more.
It took me hours to go through it all, sat at the kitchen table, one of my brand-new college-lined notebooks and pens at my side. I’d imagined using them on my first day of classes, away at college, ready to learn. Now I had a different task.
Mortgage statements, bank account balances. Gas and electric, groceries and gas. The neat set of numbers on my notebook grew, frighteningly long with every new expense. I’d never known, the money it took to hold our lives together. We’d never been rich, just comfortable; but with Dad gone . . . Mom had taken the house in the settlement, but there was no alimony, no child support since I turned eighteen in the spring. I flipped through the papers, certain I had to be missing something, but it was all there in stark black and white. Mom had been draining her only savings account these past months, trying to keep us afloat. Now that she had no job, there was no way to pay the bills.
We would have nothing.
I looked up from the papers. It was dark outside, and my eyes ached, and that fervent panic had ebbed into something worse, something empty and bleak with resignation.
There was no avoiding it any longer. I’d tried, playing make-believe all summer long, but fall was almost here now, and the truth was beating against my skull in a dull, heavy ache.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
I called Ethan.
It was late. I shouldn’t have, but it was the only thing I could think of to keep the future at bay. Not the future I’d dreamed of, bright and full of shimmering possibilities, but this new ugly prison that had suddenly reared up before me, dark enough to block out the sun.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, standing aside to let him in. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I don’t want to be alone.’
He wrapped his arms around me, like I knew he would. ‘It’s OK,’ he murmured, gently stroking my hair. I clung to him, my fear mingling with a relief so sweet it made the darkness recede, just a fraction.
I could hold on to him.
Tonight, I could hold him, and I wouldn’t be alone.
I wait for an hour on a hard plastic chair in the hallway, hugging my arms around myself to keep from falling. After the madness of the fighting and the fire, the screams and the sirens, I’m finally alone.
I close my eyes against the cheap fluorescent lights, sinking into the darkness. Safe and still.
But I’m not safe, not yet. He could die.
And if he doesn’t . . .
‘Chloe!’
I snap my eyes open. Sheriff Weber is sprinting towards me, out of breath. His shirt is buttoned wrong; they must have woken him to get down here. ‘Jesus, Chloe, are you OK? When I heard on the radio . . .’ He reaches out to touch my shoulder, then stops, suddenly unsure. ‘What happened? They said there was a fire, a boy got stabbed . . . ?’ He pauses again, catching his breath. ‘You’re bleeding.’ Weber looks frantically around. ‘Can we get a nurse over here? Someone!’
I slowly shake my head. I haven’t spoken since the nine-one-one call, and now, it takes me a moment to get the words out. ‘It’s not mine.’ I finally manage to whisper.
/> ‘What?’ Weber turns back to me.
‘The blood.’ My voice is hoarse, my throat still burning from the smoke. ‘It’s not mine. It’s his. I’m OK.’
Weber paces back and forth for a moment. ‘The boy. It was one of the Reznick kids, wasn’t it? Where the hell is he?’
‘In surgery.’ I clasp my hands tight. ‘They say . . . They say he might not make it.’
‘Christ.’ Weber swears, and I realize through my daze that it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him curse. The other guys at the station always ran their mouths off, as crude as they came, but the most Weber ever uttered was a pained ‘Dangit!’ when he caught his finger in the desk drawer one time.
Weber stops pacing. ‘Have you talked to anyone yet?’
I don’t reply.
‘Chloe?’ Weber’s voice is careful, but I can hear a thread of uncertainty in his tone. He crouches down in front of me, unwieldy, leaning in so his eyes are level with mine and I can smell the tang of mint on his breath. ‘This is important, I need you to listen to me. Have you talked to anyone, anyone at all? One of the other deputies?’
I shake my head. ‘I . . . I haven’t said a word,’ I whisper. ‘They said I was in shock.’
‘OK.’ Weber gives a sharp nod. ‘You need to think very carefully about what you say. You understand?’ His eyes burn into mine, hooded and dark. ‘What happened in there, I’m on your side. Maybe you were fighting, maybe he tried to push you too far . . . But things like this can get out of control. You need to call someone: your parents, a lawyer. You need someone here to make sure things go right.’
I shiver. ‘I don’t understand,’ I whisper. ‘It was all a mistake. I never meant—’
‘Your parents.’ Weber cuts me off. ‘Did you call them?’
I shake my head again. ‘They won’t come. My mom . . . ’ I stop. ‘Nobody’s coming for me.’
Weber exhales in a long breath. He heaves himself up and moves to the seat beside me. ‘I know a guy, a public defender out in Bloomington. I’ll see if he can come down and sit with you for the interviews.’