Everything's Fine

by Janci Patterson

  I looked down at our uneaten sandwiches, his half, and mine, waiting for Nick to argue. But he didn't. He just finished his apple, bite by bite.

  Two and a Half Years Before

  The summer I turned thirteen, Haylee and I spent the three weeks after tournament season ended at the rec center pool. Nick lived only a few blocks away, so he walked down and joined us in the afternoons, sometimes with his younger siblings, sometimes without.

  Haylee and I were lying out on our towels, her in her pink sports-bra bikini top and swim shorts, and me in my one piece. I watched the entrance, waiting for Nick.

  Haylee followed my eye line, and snorted. "He's not coming today," she said. "His grandma is in town."

  "Oh," I said. "You could have told me."

  "I just did."

  "I meant before I got my hopes up."

  She laughed. "It's not my fault you paddle around after him like a puppy."

  My cheeks turned red. I did not. If anything, I avoided him too much, so he had no idea that I liked him. Though he did like to splash me until the lifeguards yelled at us to stop.

  "Besides," Haylee said. "He's more likely to go for her." Haylee pointed up at a lifeguard, who must have been at least sixteen, wearing a swimsuit that pushed up her breasts.

  "Really?" I asked.

  "I know, right? But Nick likes older girls. He told me."

  "He said that to you?"

  Haylee's face fell, like she'd just now realized that would bother me. "Yeah," she said.

  I lay my cheek down on my towel, with my face turned away from Haylee, so she wouldn't see my cheeks turning red.

  "I'm sorry," Haylee said after a second. "It's not your fault you're younger than him."

  After that, I stopped meeting them at the pool.

  Chapter Sixteen

  That night I stayed upstairs until I knew Mom had gone to bed, and then I cleaned the living room. Something about sneaking out in the middle of the night made me want to do something nice without being asked, but I didn't want to do it while she was awake, because then she'd give me that look that meant she knew I was up to something, and as always, she'd be right.

  When Nick texted me, I was changing into black jeans and a hoodie. On my way now, he said.

  When I reached the corner, a car approached down the street, headlights shining toward me. In the glare, I couldn't tell who it was. If it was a cop, I could be picked up for breaking curfew. I stepped back into the shadows of some bushes, but the bushes were shorter than I was.

  The car stopped a few feet away. The passenger door opened, and I could see Nick inside, leaning across the seat to look at me, wearing black jeans and a black hoodie.

  How cute. We were twins.

  "You coming?" he asked.

  I climbed into the passenger seat. "We look like criminals." All we needed were a pair of ski masks.

  "But check this out." Nick unzipped his hoodie. His shirt underneath was black, but on his chest was a picture of a phone booth and the letters "WWTDD."

  "I actually get that one," I said. "Doctor Who." Haylee and I used to marathon it on weekends.

  "I thought you would," Nick said. "Finally."

  "I bet the Doctor wouldn't have worn all black."

  Nick smiled. "I knew I should have gone with the bow tie, but I didn't want to be conspicuous."

  As we cruised by Haylee's house, we both turned to look at the empty driveway.

  "I guess that's a go, then?" he asked.

  My heart picked up pace. "Yeah," I said. "Let's do it."

  Nick drove around the block and parked at the far end of Haylee's street. "The neighbors will probably recognize the car," he said. "We should walk from here."

  In our burglar clothes. This was going to be good.

  Most of the lights were out on Haylee's street, but a few windows showed a television flicker. As we approached Haylee's house, I was relieved to see that all the lights were out. I felt exposed walking up the empty side yard. Nick led me through the gate, so we could go in the back door. The gate clicked shut behind us.

  Nick paused on the other side of the gate. "What's that noise?" he asked.

  I stopped, listening. A humming noise came from the house.

  "Maybe they left a box fan running," I said.

  "A fan. In January."

  "A space heater?"

  "If it is, it's the loudest one on the planet."

  I followed Nick to the back deck. When we came to the steps, he pulled keys out of his pocket.

  "Don't turn on any lights," Nick said, "in case Aaron comes home while we're here." Then he held the door open, and let me go in first.

  I stepped into the kitchen far enough that Nick could come in, too, and he shut the door behind him and punched the lock. We both breathed in at the same moment.

  The house smelled of smoke. "Aaron must have been chain smoking in the house," I whispered. "Hazel's going to have a fit." Also, he had to be smoking the nastiest cigarettes known to man.

  Nick nodded and looked toward the inside garage door. I could still hear the humming sound. Aaron was probably trying to use the fan to get rid of the smell. That wouldn't work. If it smelled this bad, it must have already sunk into the upholstery.

  I put a hand on Nick's elbow, pulling gently. "Let's get this done," I said.

  We moved toward Hazel's office. I kept my hand on Nick's elbow as we moved through the kitchen to the hallway, and past the empty downstairs bathroom. Had the house been dark and quiet like this when Haylee swallowed all those pills?

  The hairs on my arms rose, as if she was beside me in the dark.

  We reached the door to Hazel's office. I put my hand on the door frame, groping in the dark for the handle, but my hand met air.

  The door was open. My fingers reached the lamp inside her door. I switched it on.

  Hazel's office was a disaster. Papers were strewn over every surface—not just the desk, but the chair, the floor, the filing cabinet. Several of the drawers had been removed and stacked, their contents scattered across every available surface.

  I'd never seen this office with so much as one paper out of place. "What happened?" I asked.

  Nick stepped up to the desk and shifted the papers around. There were statements from the mortuary with numbers so high they made my eyes cross, as well as a mountain of cards and pictures and flowers. He unearthed an empty pill bottle and held it up. Xanax. Haylee had taken that one for anxiety once, but this prescription was made out to Hazel, and the date was recent.

  I joined Nick, sifting through the papers on the floor, searching for the journal. But my hands came up empty.

  I closed my eyes, thinking about the enormity of the house, the number of places that Hazel could have hidden it.

  "Look at this," Nick said. He pulled some papers out of one of the drawers. The drawer front was chipped at the top, and on closer inspection, I found the broken piece still attached to the front of the desk, secured by a locking mechanism. Someone had pried the locked drawer open with so much force that the press board split in two.

  I looked at the papers in Nick's hands. A title ran across the top in bold letters: Settlement of Divorce.

  My stomach dropped. Hazel was filing for divorce?

  Now?

  I looked around at the office. "Hazel didn't do this," I said. "It was Aaron."

  "Oh," Nick said. "Oh, no."

  He dropped the divorce papers onto the desk and brushed past me, running out of the office and down the hallway toward the kitchen.

  Toward the garage, and that loud hum.

  I followed, close on Nick's heels, breathing in the smoky smell of the house, which now that I thought of it, didn't exactly smell like Aaron's cigarettes. More like the school parking lot right after the final bell rang.

  More like exhaust.

  Nick got to the kitchen door that led into the garage. He opened it, the weather stripping dragging along the concrete step at the bottom. And over it, I could hear that loud
humming.

  Not a fan. A car motor.

  Oh, no.

  I coughed as my lungs took in air thick with exhaust. Nick flipped on the garage light, which framed him in the doorway, clouds of brown air rushing into the house around him.

  There, in the garage, was Aaron's blue sedan. I stepped up right behind Nick, looking over his shoulder. Junk from the garage was piled on either side, wedging the car between boxes, bags, and tools. A stack of cardboard topped with a tarp was squished against the driver's side door, but all the car windows were down. And in the driver's seat lay Aaron, his seat back reclined, his head lolled over like he'd fallen asleep at the wheel.

  His eyes were closed, and while Nick convulsed with coughs in front of me, Aaron didn't move.

  My lungs hacked again, and I put a hand over my mouth. Nick breathed through the sleeve of his hoodie and climbed over the piles of junk toward the car. He reached in through the window, his face contorting and turning away from Aaron's body.

  And he turned off the car.

  Then he doubled over, coughing.

  I stepped toward Nick, ready to grab him by the arm and haul him out before he fainted from the fumes. And that's when I saw it. There, on the dash, just a foot from Aaron.

  Haylee's journal.

  Nick reached over the pile of boxes next to the driver's side door again. His fingers stretched toward the body—toward Aaron. And when his hand met Aaron's neck, he flinched.

  My stomach turned, and I coughed again. If we stayed here, we were both going to die. I reached for Nick, grabbing him by the arm. But before I pulled him back into the kitchen, I reached past him, dangerously close to Aaron's still body, and grabbed the journal.

  Then I turned back toward the kitchen, hauling Nick along with me as we both sputtered and hacked. When we reached the kitchen door, Nick did what we should have done to begin with: he hit the button to the automatic garage door. The gears of the door opener ground as the door lifted, and the filthy air emptied out into the night.

  I ran through the kitchen to the back door, with Nick right behind me. Nick closed the back door behind us, and we both breathed deep in the fresh air. My hand gripped the journal.

  We'd been in the house with a dead body. No one would believe we'd killed Aaron with the car, but if they read the journal, they'd think I was the reason he did it. They'd think I was here, trying to cover the evidence.

  Nothing I said would make them believe me, when Haylee wrote those lies and wasn't here to deny them.

  Nick already had his phone out and to his ear. I could hear the operator on the other end: "911. What is your emergency?"

  "My uncle killed himself," he said. "I found him in the garage with the car running."

  The operator said something, but I couldn't make it out.

  "No," Nick said. "I opened the doors, but he's cold."

  He's cold.

  If he'd started with a full tank of gas, the engine could have been running for hours.

  My knuckles ached from my tight grasp on the journal. If I let the police see me with it, they'd think it was evidence. They'd think Aaron killed himself because of what Haylee wrote. They'd think it was true.

  I looked around frantically. What could I do with the journal? I could hide it here in the yard, but anybody might find it. I turned and walked toward the side yard. Nick followed, his ear still to the phone. "Yes, I'll wait," he said.

  I reached the gate, and pushed it open.

  And then, with Nick standing too far behind me to stop me, I ran.

  Three Months Before

  Haylee called my cell phone at two AM the Friday after the first week of school. I groped for it on my nightstand, only finding it on the third swat. "Hello?"

  I could hear sniffling on the other end, but no words.

  "Haylee?"

  The sniffling grew softer.

  "Haylee?" I said again.

  Finally I heard her voice on the other end, though it sounded muted, as if far away. "Will it ever end?" she asked.

  I didn't have to ask what. She meant the pain, the fear, whatever demons cornered her in the night and made her wake up screaming.

  "Sure," I said. "You'll feel better tomorrow."

  "No!" Haylee said. "Wrong answer! One strike, you're out."

  "I get three strikes," I said, and I hoped she would laugh, but instead she sobbed like a wounded animal.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I can listen, if you want."

  Her sobs fell silent. "You can listen," she said, "but can you hear?"

  We sat there in silence. I watched my digital clock tick by one minute, then five, then fifteen. Haylee must have fallen asleep with her cheek against the phone, because I could hear her breathing grow deep and even.

  So I never had to tell her that the answer was no. I could listen. I could try. But I could never hear enough to make the pain stop.

  Haylee was drowning, and I watched from the shore, without a ring.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My feet pounded down the sidewalk. Home was only a short run away. And when I got there, what would I do? Hide the journal. Pretend I'd never been there. Pretend I'd never seen.

  But Nick would tell, wouldn't he? He'd have to tell the police I'd been there, and they'd come to my house, and they'd knock on my door, and they'd wake up my mom—

  Footsteps pounded behind me.

  "Kira!" Nick called. "Wait up."

  I slowed, my shoes still slamming into the sidewalk for several more steps. Then I felt Nick's hand on my shoulder. He spun me around to face him.

  "Where are you going?" he said.

  We were both panting, from the running, from the smoke, from finding the body. And I looked down at Nick's hands, and found he'd already hung up the phone.

  He wasn't supposed to do that. He'd told the operator he'd stay on.

  "Just don't tell them I was here, okay?" I said. "Tell them you drove by, and you stopped, and you heard the car, and you found him. Don't tell them it was me. Don't tell them about the journal."

  Nick's hand ran down my forearm, and then his fingers laced through mine.

  My heart pounded. Maybe he'd been trying to take the journal and grabbed the wrong hand.

  Shut up, Kira, I thought. A guy doesn't hold your hand on accident.

  He squeezed my hand. "You promised you were going to tell me what Haylee wrote. Remember?"

  "You," I said. "I said I'd tell you. Not the police." I shook my head. Too hard.

  Nick's fingers tightened around mine. "You're shaking," he said. "You're really that afraid of people reading what's in there?"

  I took a deep breath, then nodded. "Everyone will believe her," I said.

  Nick looked over his shoulder, back at the house. I couldn't hear sirens. Would they use sirens, if they were coming for someone who was dead?

  "Okay," Nick said. "Okay. We don't have to stay."

  "He's your uncle," I said. "You have to go back."

  "He's dead. You're—" He took a deep breath. "Let's go. We can read the journal together."

  "Now?" I asked.

  "Now," he said. He pulled me toward his car, which was parked still farther down the street.

  I had no room to argue with that.

  We reached the car, and Nick opened my door for me. When I sat down, I squeezed the journal between my knees and put my head in my hands.

  He closed my door, and then he climbed in on the driver's side and started the car.

  I heard the sirens now, far off.

  Nick pulled onto the road, and drove in the other direction. I felt like the car was barely crawling forward, but when I looked over at the speedometer, Nick was driving at the speed limit.

  "Do you want to read it to me?" Nick asked. "Or just tell me what it says?"

  Where should I begin? Should I prepare him first, or let him read it for himself? I looked down at the smooth edge of the journal's spine.

  "Not here," I said. "Can we go somewhere?"

  "Like w
here?"

  "I don't know." We couldn't go to my house, or his, without waking our families up. Besides, someone would call his mom eventually. The police would know it was him who called 911.

  I looked at the clock. It was midnight already. Hopefully Mom hadn't woken up when I left, or she'd have the police after me. "We could go to a park."

  Nick nodded. "There's one this way."

  Of course there was—the one that I'd been to with Bradley, where we'd apparently had sex right there in the trees.

  I didn't want to remind Nick about that. I thought it might occur to him that I'd want to go somewhere else, but in minutes, I could see the treetops of the arboretum in the yellow park lights.

  "This okay?" Nick asked.

  "Fine," I said, though the other F word was really the one I meant. I wondered how people would react if I said that every time they asked me how I was doing. Lately, it'd be closer to the truth.

  "They'll be looking for you, won't they?" I asked. "The police?"

  "Not here," Nick said. "I'll just tell them you got scared, and I took you away to calm you down."

  That wasn't too far from the truth. But it was still a lie. Nick had just offered to lie to the police for me. I guessed I shouldn't be surprised. That was the sort of thing a protective big brother might do.

  Nick pulled into the parking lot and flipped off first the car, then the lights. Fluorescents shone from the corners of the parking lot, flooding the journal in my lap with yellow light. I pulled it out from between my knees.

  I should tell him, so he heard the story my way first. Not in Haylee's words. I couldn't let her convince him.

  But the words stuck in my throat. I couldn't get them out.

  Nick pulled out his penlight, his keys rattling in his hand.

  We sat in silence for another moment. Nick was still waiting for me to decide what I wanted to do. The police had to have found Aaron by now. Or the paramedics. Or the firemen. They'd be looking for us—for the people who called.

  "They might trace your phone," I said.

  "I shut it off. If they call, they'll get voice mail."

  I shut my eyes. I had to tell him. But my mouth wouldn't form the words. "Let's just read."