“I’m not sorry for punching you,” he said as I climbed out of the car.
“I didn’t ask you to apologize,” I said. “You should go home and propose to Rae right now.”
“And you should finally let the Delilah thing go.”
I shut the car door and Aaron drove away.
I went to my apartment and had the sinking feeling of need.
A need to see Amelia.
I wanted her there.
I wanted to see her.
I wanted to hold her.
I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to tell her everything.
But my apartment was empty.
Amelia was gone.
The letter was on the kitchen floor where I had left it.
I crouched to get the letter and lost my balance and smashed my face off the cabinet.
I fell to my ass and sat there, clutching the letter that was supposed to fix everything.
All it did was make everything worse.
Chapter 36
Miles Alone
THEN
(Amelia)
“Look what I found,” Margaret said as she lifted the lid of a wooden garden box and showed me the pack of cigarettes.
I gasped and shook my head. “Where…”
“My mother’s,” she said.
“Donna smokes? What about Dr. Bill? He’d lose his mind.”
“They both used to smoke, Amelia,” Margaret said.
“What?”
“I guess back in college or whatever. They smoked all the time. I think Dad sneaks one here and there. Maybe after a long surgery. But Mom… she has a secret stash.”
“This is wild,” I said.
I looked at the back of the giant, perfect house Margaret called home. The backyard, even on a slight hill, was filled with careful gardening. Every flower and every color in a certain place for a certain reason.
And yet they had their secrets.
It made me shiver.
They were human and I didn’t like that.
This place was my escape. In the stories I wrote for Mom, this house was the castle where the princess went to survive. This house was the safe place the animals who could talk would hide in to feel safe.
“Let’s try one,” Margaret said, breaking up my thoughts.
I gasped. “What?”
“Why not?”
“They’re bad for you,” I said.
“Not one. Only if you get addicted to them. We learned about this in school. Plus, my dad’s a doctor. If anything happened, he’d save us.”
I swallowed hard.
What was my dad?
He was a loser alcoholic who threw punches when he was angry. I guess he was good at fixing cars, but even then, he hadn’t had a real job in a long time. There was this one time when Dr. Bill’s car had a problem and I thought about saying something about my father. But Dr. Bill had a special dealership to take his car to where they gave him a rental while they fixed his.
I hated feeling useless.
I wasn’t invisible though. Dr. Bill and Donna made sure of that.
But useless…
“Come on,” Margaret said. “It’ll be fun. I’ll go first.”
I slowly nodded. “Okay. Cool.”
I watched as Margaret fumbled to get the cigarette out of the pack as though it were a lit stick of dynamite. That told me she definitely hadn’t done this before. Which meant she was trusting me to do this with her. We were going to be best friends forever. Definitely.
She put the cigarette between her lips and fought with the lighter. I didn’t know how to use the lighter and neither did Margaret. When she got the lighter to spark into a flame, she squealed and dropped the cigarette. We both laughed and Margaret started over.
This time it was much cooler and smoother.
She put the cigarette between her lips.
She got the lighter to work.
She put the flame to the cigarette, and I swore I heard the paper sizzling for a quick second.
She shut her eyes and took a deep drag.
The tip of the cigarette burned with a red-orange glow.
Margaret then quickly took the cigarette from her mouth with her thumb and pointer finger and started to cough. Smoke danced around her head.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She coughed hard, smacking her chest.
“Here,” she said. “Do it. Right now. Do it.”
I licked my lips and brought the tan end of the cigarette to my lips. My eyes crossed as I watched it smoke. This was so totally wrong, but I couldn’t help myself.
Me and Margaret were going to be best friends forever. We were going to talk about this when we got older.
I put my lips around the cigarette and quickly took a drag.
I shut my eyes and winced, waiting for pain.
Instead of pain it was a choking feeling. A hot feeling down my throat and right back up. The smoke tickling and scratching at me.
I started to cough just like Margaret did.
She laughed at me as I handed her the cigarette back.
The back door opened, and Donna’s voice yelled for us.
“Oh, crap!” Margaret whispered in a loud voice.
She dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. She hurried to kick it into the garden. She shut the wooden garden box.
“Coming!” she called back to her mother.
The door shut and we both looked at each other.
We burst into laughter.
Then we jumped into each other’s arms, still laughing.
Dr. Bill paced the kitchen with a serious look on his face.
Margaret and I sat next to each other.
Donna sat across from us.
My heart raced like it never had before.
They knew we had been smoking.
That’s what this was.
They somehow knew.
I wasn’t sure what my parents would do. My father would use it as a reason to get angry. I bit my lip, wondering if I should tell Donna and Dr. Bill about my father. Margaret knew about him, but she was sworn to secrecy.
Margaret sprayed me with honey lavender body spray and swore it would cover up the smell of smoke.
“We need to talk to you both,” Donna said.
“About what?” Margaret asked.
“We were trying to find the right time to do this,” Dr. Bill said. He stopped walking. “And, Amelia, you really are a part of this family. So, I wanted you to be here.”
I looked at Margaret.
Maybe this wasn’t about us smoking?
“Margaret, this is the only house you’ve ever known,” Donna said. “We brought you home from the hospital right through that back door into the kitchen. Your first steps were in the hallway to the den. We used to have the biggest Christmas tree possible in the front window. We’ve had so many good memories in this house.”
Dr. Bill stepped up to his wife and touched her shoulders.
He swallowed hard.
“What are you talking about?” Margaret asked.
“There are some changes being made at the hospital,” Dr. Bill said. “Do you remember when I had to fly out to Arizona twice?”
“Yes,” Margaret said.
“Well, that was for work. It was for an interview. Do you know what that is?”
Margaret shrugged her shoulders.
My heart stopped beating and sank. “It’s for a job.”
“That’s right,” Dr. Bill said. “I was lucky enough to interview for a really important position at a different hospital.”
“In Arizona?” Margaret asked.
“It’ll be a change,” Donna said. “For all of us.”
My hands started to sweat and shake. “You’re moving to Arizona…”
Dr. Bill slowly nodded.
“What?” Margaret asked. “Who is? Dad? You’re leaving?”
“No, Maggie Girl,” Dr. Bill said. “We all are.”
“Amelia too?” she as
ked.
Donna lowered her head.
“No,” he said. “I wish we could.”
You can! Just say the word! I don’t have anything to pack! I don’t take up any space at all! I’ll confess to smoking! I’ll apologize! Take me with you! I bet if you ask my father he won’t care! Please, Dr. Bill, don't leave me…
My bottom lip quivered.
“This is so hard,” Donna said.
“We’re going to keep the house here for a little bit,” Dr. Bill said. “Just to make sure things work out there. We’re going to rent it out. I already have someone lined up to live here.”
“Then what?” Margaret asked.
“Well, it’s simple,” Dr. Bill said. “If things work out there, then we sell this house and buy something there.”
“Where are we going to live out there?” Margaret asked.
“We’re going to rent a house,” Donna said.
“What about Amelia?”
Donna looked at me. “She can come visit anytime.”
I forced a smile.
My parents had no money.
They couldn’t afford to put gas in both vehicles.
“We’ll pay for her to travel,” Dr. Bill said.
Under the table, Margaret reached for my hand.
Donna cleared her throat and secretly wiped away a tear.
She didn’t like this.
Neither did I.
Nobody did.
So why was it happening?
Why are they letting this happen?
“I know you’re wondering why this is happening,” Dr. Bill said. “And that it’s unfair. That it’s bullshit.”
“Bill!” Donna snapped.
“Sorry,” he said. “But it’s true. They’re best friends. And distance sucks. But you two can make this work. I will fly Amelia out anytime she needs to come out. We will make sure everyone stays close.”
“And the job might not even work out,” Margaret said.
“Right,” Dr. Bill said.
He smiled, but I knew that smile.
It was a lying smile.
This job was going to work out.
They were moving to Arizona.
And I was never going to see Margaret again.
Now I just needed to lie to her, so she didn’t feel the way I did knowing the truth.
I walked up the porch steps and wiped the tears off my face.
I lied to Donna and said my mother was outside to pick me up. Which meant I walked the three miles from Margaret’s house to mine. From the big and fancy houses on the hill all the way down to the crooked and beaten up houses near the river. The streets were dark, and they were scary, but I didn’t really care.
Margaret was leaving for Arizona over the weekend.
They were flying out as a family to spend a few days there. Dr. Bill wanted his family to meet the staff of the hospital, see the new house and check out some sights. He wanted Margaret to feel comfortable. He even arranged for her to meet her new teachers at the private school she would be attending.
Private school.
That meant Margaret would be with other rich kids like herself.
I’d become an afterthought in no time.
And that was okay.
Margaret deserved to have really good friends. Friends that had money too so they could do fun things together. I hated that Donna and Dr. Bill had to pay for everything with me. My parents never did a thing for Margaret.
I hated my parents.
I hated everything.
When I got to the porch, I heard yelling.
‘Don’t you fucking talk to me like that!’
‘This is my goddamn house. I don’t see you doing anything but getting fat!’
‘How dare you…’
Then came slamming.
Thuds against the walls. Glass hitting the floor.
I was frozen, unsure of what hell waited for me.
When the front door opened and my father came barreling out, I didn’t move in time.
He crashed into me and sent me down to my butt.
He stepped over me and stared down at me with a rage in his eyes that made me numb.
“What did you do?” I asked him.
“What needed to be done,” my father said. “Speak out of line again and I’ll do the same to you.”
My father walked down the steps and was gone into the night.
I rolled to my belly and watched him go.
It took me a few minutes to get to my feet.
I lost my best friend. Forever.
Nothing was going to be the same.
Now I had to go inside and see what my father had done to my mother.
“Mom?” I called out from the open front door.
“Amelia,” her voice said from the dining room. “Don’t come in. Fly… baby… fly…”
I swallowed hard and turned away from my own house.
I had nobody.
Unless…
I could go find someone… the boy I was in love with.
Chapter 37
Hide and Run
THEN
(Josh)
“I know this house,” Murph said to me. “And why you do what you do.”
I stood with a knife and was ready to slash every tire on my father’s van.
“You have a problem with it?” I asked Murph.
“No. I just think we have bigger things to handle.”
“Like what?”
“Like that prick Derrick telling everyone he fucked Cassie. You know, that’s not even her real name, right?”
“Of course I know that,” I said. “We never use real names. That’s part of the fun. For them and us.”
“Still… he’s running around talking shit about Cassie.”
“Does it matter? Nobody knows who that is.”
“It’s about respect,” Murph said. “Give me that knife.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to cut Derrick’s tongue out.”
“And I’m the fucked up one?”
“Hey,” he said, grabbing my shirt. “I have a real fight. You have a made up one.”
“Fuck you, Murph.”
“Fuck me?” he growled. “Your father doesn’t love you, man. Oh well. Neither does mine. Get over it. He’s fucking someone else. He’s got a family. A good family too. Look at the way you are. You think he wants to raise your sorry ass.”
“I’m going to knock you out, brother,” I said.
Murph backed up. “That’s my point. That’s what we do. We fight. We drink. We control the streets. So, come fight me, you pussy.”
I moved toward Murph and the porch light of my father’s house came on.
The door flew open and Murph and I ducked behind the van.
“Who’s out there?” my father’s voice yelled.
“Shit,” I whispered. “You go. Run. Go up the hill to meet with Nash and Abel. I’ll catch up.”
“Give me the knife,” Murph said. “I’m going to find Derrick.”
“Don’t kill him,” I said.
“I won’t. You going to be there with us?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You sneak away, and I’ll distract this asshole.”
“I’m sorry about your father, man. It sucks. And I was serious about my father. These guys are fucking pieces of scum.”
I put a fist out and Murph punched it.
He kept a low squat and moved across the street.
I popped up at the front of the van and clapped my hands.
“Who is that?” my father’s voice yelled.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Murph was across the street and cutting into the bushes to stay out of sight.
When I turned my head again, my father was charging down the porch steps.
He stopped on the second and our eyes locked.
Father and son.
Jamison and Josh.
He knew exactly who I was.
I knew exactly who he was.
His mouth opened l
ike he was going to say something.
This was my moment to spew it all at him. The anger. The hatred. Every little word I had been building up for so long. The fact that he dropped off a baby at my house and left that baby to be raised by me and Gram. The fact that that baby was now in a little casket in the ground and he didn’t have the nerve to show up to the funeral. He wasn’t there the entire time Delaney was sick. Or maybe the fact that Gram was home right now, sitting on the couch, shaking like she was sitting in shorts and a t-shirt in Antarctica.
I didn’t want to speak to him.
I wanted to hurt him.
Instead, I turned and ran.
It was like walking into the most perfect day of the year. The kind of day in either spring or fall. In spring when the air was the perfect temperature. Birds chirping. Trees and flowers blooming. Where nothing is going on, yet everything is alive. And the kind of day in fall where the leaves are rustling and falling. The air is so crisp but not exactly cold.
That was what seeing Amelia was like.
I had been walking toward her house and she had been walking toward me.
We looked at each other and both stopped walking.
I somehow saw her eyes in the darkness of the night. Like a light had been shining in them.
I think I was falling for her.
Three years older than her really meant a lot at our age, but I couldn’t help my feelings. She knew more and understood more than so many girls her age and older. When I looked at a girl like Cassie, there was nothing there. Murph was all over her because of her low-cut shirts and willingness to do anything. Which was cool. Cassie could come hang with us and be someone different. New name. New clothes. And go wild.
I didn’t want that for Amelia.
That’s why I protected her from Murph, Nash, Abel and all the others.
That was a crazy way to live.
If Amelia went anywhere near it… I would have to confess to her…
“Josh,” she said. “How do you know?”
“Know what?”
“When I need you the most,” she said.
I hurried to her.
Without thinking, my hands touched her face. Sliding against her soft cheeks and into her curly hair. I stared down at her with an intense look, looking for any marks from her father. Because if that dirtbag ever touched her again I was going to kill him.
A Letter to Delilah Page 23
