I keep the details to a minimum. She's silent, listening to my verbal tap dance. I weave something mildly convincing and hope she's buying it.
“We should probably go in,” I say when I've run out of Peter things. I look up at the sky, which is significantly lighter than when we started. We gather up the discarded weeds and my mother's tools. I toss the weeds on the compost pile and she puts her tools away.
We can hear Dad snoring the second we open the door. She laughs softly.
“We're lucky he sleeps like the dead. Especially lately.” She says it as a joke, but there's something sad in it, too.
“Goodnight, ma fleur. Sweet dreams.” She kisses my forehead and I pull her in for a hug. I hold her tight, breathing her in. Memorizing. Trying to bottle her up so I can keep her.
“I love you.” I've been having a hard time saying it lately, which is weird because I've never had a hard time saying it before. I'm just more aware than ever what it means and how many times I have left to say it.
“Love you too, baby.”
I freeze this image in my mind: her with dirt under her fingernails and a tired smile on her face. Add her hair back, and a little more weight and she'd be perfect.
Twenty-Four
He stays outside my window the whole night. Not that he watches me sleep or anything, but he stays close. Close enough that I know he's there. I don't look out the window. I don't want him to know that I know that he's there. Somehow it feels embarrassing to have him babysit me.
He's not there when I wake up. I feel his absence like a hole in my chest and I hate myself for it. Mom is sleeping in, go figure, and Dad left long before I woke up. Somehow I struggle into some clothes and make it to school without crashing my car.
With everything that went on in the night, I completely forget the coffee I promised Tex. She doesn't.
“I thought you were going start being a better friend,” she says, crossing her arms and squinting at me. She only squints when she's mad.
“I know, I know.” I rest my head against my locker. I'm so beyond tired that everything looks kind of hazy and I have to keep my eyes focused so I don't stare into space. Tex doesn't notice, or maybe she doesn't care.
“Don't know, do. I talked with Jamie this weekend.” Her nails are painted a sunny yellow, but her mood is the opposite.
“And?”
“And he really needs us. Both of us.” You suck, Ava, is implied.
“I'm sorry.” I keep saying the same stupid words, and they don't make any difference.
“I've had it with you being sorry. I'm done. Seriously. Either you tell me what's going on with you, or I'm...” She waves her hands and sputters, trying to come up with something that she's going to do to me.
“I know. I'm sorry. More than you know. I've been a crappy friend.”
“Stop telling me what you've been doing. I know. Just fix it.” I open my mouth to say something, but close it. There's nothing I can say without telling her about all the things. “Jamie really needs us and you're not there,” she continues.
I would love it if Ivan came right now and strangled the life out of me. It might make me feel better.
“I don't want to upset you, but I can't take it, Ava. You're distracted and you don't call. I don't want to be a bitch, but you need to grow some balls and tell me. I'm really worried.” She lowers her voice so the rest of the hallway can't hear.
“Tex.” I'm going to cry.
“It also hurts me. It hurts me that there is a part of your life that you're not sharing. We've been through everything together and I feel like you're pushing me away, and I don't want that.” Now she's going to cry. Her chin shakes just a little.
“I don't want that either.” I try to blink the tears away, but they just keep coming. God damn them.
“Then talk to me.” She's chewing on her nails; little flecks of yellow polish dot her lips.
“I can't.” I stare at a dent in my locker so hard I worry it's going to burst into flames.
“I'm sorry, Ava. I've gotta go.” She stares at the floor as she turns around.
“Tex.” She's already gone. I lean against my locker, wiping tears from my eyes. I've screwed things up so much.
~^*^~
Jamie looks beaten when I see him at lunch. He's hunched over his pizza, guzzling some Mountain Dew. His eyes tell me he hasn't slept in a while. Tex is MIA, which isn't a surprise after our confrontation.
“Hey, James.” It takes him a second to look up. When I meet his eyes, I want to stab myself with my fork for neglecting him. “How you doin'?” He just shrugs. “Jamie. Come on.” I reach out and grab his arm. He winces. “Jamie.” I shake him a little, but he's still as stone.
“I'm fine, Ava. Leave me alone.” I slide my chair so close I'm practically in his lap. He's not getting off that easy. This, I can try to fix.
“No, I won't. How's Cassie?”
“Fine. She's keeping the baby.” He takes another swig and glances around the room. No one wants to look me in the eye today. At least he's talking to me at all, instead of avoiding me.
“That's good.” It sounds like a question, because I haven't gotten a read on him yet.
“Dad says she's not having a bastard child under his roof.” He taps the drink cap on the table, and I can feel his leg jumping up and down under the table.
“Oh, Jamie.” I try to touch him again.
“Stop it.” He stands. “I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. Least of all you.” He takes his tray and throws the whole thing in the trash — even the silverware that we're supposed to put on a conveyor belt to be washed and reused — hunches his shoulders and walks outside. I sit for a second, wondering what my chances are at catching him with my stubby legs. Not very good. It's also starting to rain.
I decide to go for it anyway.
“Jamie! Jamie!” I don't care that I'm an idiot yelling down the hallway outside the lunchroom. One of the teachers pokes her head out of her classroom, fork in hand.
“You need to go back to lunch,” she says, giving me a stern look, or it's supposed to be stern. She kind of fails at it.
“I just need to get something from my locker,” I say, hoping she'll buy it. Her eyes narrow and I can tell she wants to go back to whatever it is she's eating.
“Turn around and go back to lunch. We can't have students wandering the hallway willy-nilly.”
“Yes, Mrs. Cremmer.”
I turn around as if I'm going back, but I bolt out the side door instead. It's full-on raining now. It's like a movie, with me running toward the parking lot yelling Jamie's name. There should be some sad instrumental music playing or something, and I should be moving in slow motion.
I'm soaked by the time I make it to the parking lot. I quickly scan for his truck, but it's gone. I can tell it apart from the other thousands of trucks because it has a streak of red paint on the bumper where someone hit it at a party. I stomp my foot and scream at the rain. Everything I do ends up being wrong.
I spend the rest of the day damp and pissed off. I barely notice that I can smell everything, including my geometry teacher's b.o. and the pot-covered-up-with-cologne scent from Jeff Swiggett, who sits in front of me. How did Peter stand it? I mean, maybe after so many years he is immune to it, but still. I barely notice it in the morning, but by the end of the day, it's almost unbearable.
Every now and then I feel angry or weird or confused or stressed or something that has nothing to do with where I am and what I am doing. It gets worse as the day wears on, as if I have a split personality that someone else is using.
At one point it's an effort not to throw my math book out the window and rip my desk apart. I'm a simmering volcano, ready to blow. Strange visions accompany my bursts of anger. Disturbing visions. Ripping people's heads off, or stabbing them or watching them die in horrible ways. It freaks me out, but more than that it excites me. I am bleeped up.
“Hey, baby, how was school?” Having recovered from the night before,
my mother's in the kitchen making some crazy elaborate cake when I stomp in. She's been baking a lot lately. Trying to teach me as well, but I don't really have the gift for it. Not for lack of trying.
I have to pause so I don't bite her head off.
“It sucked.” Two words.
“Why?”
“Tex and Jamie are mad at me.” I throw my bag down in the hall and collapse on the counter, my head smacking the granite countertop. I kind of want to smash my brains out.
“Why?”
“Because I've been 'distracted' lately.” I put finger quotes around the word distracted.
“I see.” She puts on her oven mitts that look like lady bugs. I got them for her last Christmas. “Is it just things with me, or is it something else?”
“It's everything.” I turn my face so I can watch her. I swallow hard as I watch her frail arms struggle to lift the Bundt pan out of the oven. I want to help her, but I don't want to make her feel bad. I forget about my issues for a minute. “How are you feeling?”
“Good.” She's wearing her sassy blonde wig and she kind of looks like Marilyn Monroe crossed with Martha Stewart or something.
“Never let the sun go down on your wrath.”
I'm not in the mood for one of her pieces of wisdom, but I smile at her anyway.
“What are you making?”
“Blackberry Jam cake.” I almost faint at the name of it. It's the most amazing cake in the history of the world. I've eaten a lot of cake, so I should know.
“What for?”
“I felt like it. I thought I'd have the girls over for lunch sometime, so I had to practice.” The girls are her other teacher friends. She has barely been in contact with them in months. I don't know what she told them, but she hasn't talked about them for a while now.
“Are you going to tell them?”
“I think it's time.”
Cake will make it better; that's what she's thinking. I can read it on her face.
“Are you sure? What about Aj? She's been emailing me like crazy. I don't know what to tell her anymore.”
“It's time,” she says again.
I don't press the matter and go to crash on the couch for a while. I have a few Dad-free hours and I want to enjoy them.
I hate myself for missing Peter, but I have to get over the fact that we're connected because the only thing that's going to break it is me dying. I don't really want that to happen, so I'm stuck. I wish we'd thought this out more. Like, is Peter just going to follow me around for the rest of my life? I know I'm not going to be able to be away from him for that long. Will he just be attached to my hip for the rest of my life, assuming that I live that long?
I can't seem to regret it, though. I haven't hated having him in my life, if I'm being honest. He gives me a break from thinking about my dying mother. He understands me in a way few people could, and that has to count for something.
There's a knock at the door. I look at Mom, wondering if she's expecting someone. She shrugs and goes back to making frosting. I haul myself up and cross my fingers it's not the religious people. I'm kind of a lost cause at this point.
“Hello.” There's a Peter on my doorstep.
“You're wearing shoes.” Way to point out the obvious.
“Yes. May I come in?” It's so freaky seeing him in the daytime, wearing shoes and everything.
“What are you doing here?” I'm blocking the doorway so Mom can't see him.
“I've been waiting for you.” He talks softly so my mother doesn't hear. She's humming James Taylor in the kitchen. Loudly.
“How long have you been waiting?” I bite back a happy smile. Seeing him is like having the sun come out from behind the clouds. I'm warm and fuzzy and giggly all over. I feel like running through a field and weaving flower chains and eating cotton candy. It's sickening, but it feels damn good.
“All day.” He's kind of twitching, as if little jolts of electricity pulse through him. I want to ask if he's okay.
“You've been hanging around waiting for me all day?” I hate how much I like the thought of that. That someone would wait all day just to see me.
“Not the entire day,” he says, and I think he means it as a joke. It's still hard to tell with him. I smile like a fool anyway.
“I've been waiting for you, too.” He looks down at his twitching fingers as if they don't belong to him.
“How can you stand it?” His voice isn't calm.
“Stand what?” I'm not exactly sure what he means. I'm not going to say anything about the things that are happening to me. I'm still not sure what they are exactly.
“All of it.” He taps his head. “The emotions.”
“What emotions?”
“The ones you're feeling right now. I'm receiving them from you, like electricity flowing through water. I don't know how you stand it.” He rips his hands through his hair and I'm afraid he's going to smash the door.
“Calm down. Breathe.” It's what I usually say to Tex when she's freaking out. Then I realize that he can't. “Never mind. Um, focus on something beautiful, like a beach. Hear the waves rolling in and out and imagine you're on the beach.” I wave my hands over and back. It's from one of those relaxation tapes. I'd thought they were a load of crap, but it seems to be working. His eyes are closed. He isn't breathing, obviously, but he's stopped twitching so much. That has to be a good sign.
“You know this really isn't a good time,” I whisper.
“Who's at the door?” Mom calls. Crappity crap. I hoped I'd never have to do this. While I frantically search for an escape other than pretending Peter is a mirage or just running away, she comes out of the kitchen. Too late.
“Uh, Mom, this is Peter. Peter, this is my mother, Claire.”
“Hello, Peter.” She draws out the end of the hello. “It's nice to finally meet you.”
“What do you mean finally?”
She smirks and wipes her hands on a dish towel. I just mentioned him last night.
“I'm your mother. I see all, I know all.” She narrows her eyes and scrunches her nose at me. We're ignoring Peter, but he doesn't seem to mind.
“Ava-Claire.” She sighs, propping her hands on her hips. “You're being rude to Peter.” I snap my eyes back to him. He's still, except for those twitchy hands.
“It is nice to meet you, Mrs. Sullivan,” he finally says.
She looks him up and down. Oh, I do not like that look. This cannot be happening.
“Ava said you go to Galdon Academy,” she says, naming the swanky private school a half-hour from Sussex. In hindsight, I should have filled Peter in so he could corroborate, but I hadn't known he was going to show up like this. He's staring at her like he's trying to see into her soul. For all I know, he can.
“Yes,” he says.
“How did you two meet? Ava-Claire didn't tell me.” Thanks, Mom.
“It was at a party. The one where Tex took all those compromising Facebook pictures,” I say.
“Oh, yes,” she says. Peter and my mother are having a staring contest.
I'm trying really hard not to look at Peter. Blushing, I remember the only time Peter and I were at a party and what we did. I wonder if he remembers.
“So, Peter came over to hang out.” Maybe also to drink my blood. “You want to watch a movie?” I just want this tension to ease. I'll do anything. I finally look at Peter. He tears his eyes from my mother.
“That would be nice.”
Before going back to the kitchen, Mom makes sure to meet my eyes and give me a warning. Message received. He looks out the window, as if fascinated by the rain that's starting to fall. I walk into the living room, hoping he'll follow. He does.
“Do you kids need anything?” she calls.
“No, we're fine.”
I search through my DVDs, looking for something I thought he might like. I really have no idea, but I know Legally Blonde, Sleepless in Seattle and Pretty in Pink are out of the question. I'm frantic, trying to find anything that's r
emotely grown-up or mature or non-girly. No dice.
His smell fills my head, and I wish I could bottle it, or make it into one of those air fresheners shaped like a tree. Eau de Peter. No, it would be called something like Darkness of the Night. With a brooding picture of him with no shirt on, riding a horse or something on the advertisement.
“What kind of movies do you like?”
“I have not seen many movies. Whatever you choose is fine.” I pick five boxes at random and shuffle them in my hands, fanning them out without looking at them.
“Pick one.” Without breaking eye contact, he points to a box. I turn it over, relieved.
“The Wizard of Oz it is then.” I'd been hoping he'd pick that one. I wondered if he could tell and that was why he chose it. My sources say yes.
“Are you sure I can't get you anything?” Mom's face peeks around the wall, cheery smile firmly in place. I really want some of the cake, but I don't want to eat it in front of Peter, since he can't have any.
“We're fine. Thanks.” She gives me another glare and then a wink before going back to the kitchen where the mixer sounds a little bit later. God, what have I gotten myself into?
“You are okay, aren't you? I mean, you're not starving, right?” I whisper, since eavesdropping is not beneath my mom. He had some last night, but I knew he hadn't taken as much as he could have.
“I am fine,” he says as I put the movie in. He considers before he continues, “I cannot starve. I would become weakened, and the desire to feed would get stronger until I would get it any way I could. An animal would do.”
“But since you've Claimed me, you can't do that, right?”
“Correct.” Shit. We're screwed.
I try not to think about it while we watch Dorothy sing about going over the rainbow. I've seen the movie so many times, I'm not paying much attention, but he's engrossed.
“That's my favorite part,” I say when Dorothy opens the door after the tornado and everything's in Technicolor.
“I can see why.”
We lapse into silence again. Somehow having him in my house on my couch makes everything feel awkward. If we were in the cemetery, we'd have no problem. Not so much in my living room.