by Bryan Bliss
I should turn left, shorten my route to just a block. But my momentum takes me up and down the nameless streets; left, right, and then left again. I let the air struggle down my throat and into my ragged lungs. I’ll probably pay for running twice in one day when I wake up and my legs are stiff like boards. Right now, though, with the cold night air against my face and the tall buildings rising above me like sentries, I wonder if this is why Aaron leaves.
I let everything fall out of my mind. All I think about is my feet pounding against the sidewalk. Trying to let my breath slip in my nose and out of my mouth. To pump my arms like machines. I only stop when I turn another corner and see two people standing down the block.
They are misshapen, like something from a nightmare. One looks about ten feet tall, long and gangly. He leans back and then forward, but I can’t figure out why. The other is short, like a child, but stockier. The smaller one says, “Yo, you’re getting that shit on me.”
The other, standing on the hood of the car, laughs and says, “It ain’t shit, dude.”
“Well that doesn’t mean I want it on me. Keep on target. And besides—” He stops talking and, I think, looks right at me. My eyes finally focus and I see the two of them, maybe a few years older than me, a bit more clearly. The smaller one is kneeling next to a large SUV, a can of spray paint in his hands. The other is peeing into its open sunroof.
The taller one jumps from the hood and yells, “Who’s that? Teller?” It doesn’t sound threatening, more the way you’d greet a friend you see across the street. But I don’t wait to hear what comes next.
My legs tremble with each step, but I go hard and fast even though suddenly nothing seems familiar. Every shadow reveals another person wrapped in newspaper or a stained blanket, all of them groaning and yelling at the night and me, rushing by faster than I thought possible. The voices of the two guys fade behind me, and I don’t stop running—faster and faster—until I’m back on what looks like a main street. I feel like I’m going to throw up, but I keep moving until something familiar rises out of the darkness.
I know this place.
The tall stone walls and metal gates. Rows of empty cement bleachers stretch down to the empty field. Every time we passed it, Dad would say, “A football stadium right in the middle of the city . . . how do you like that?” I’m two blocks away from the van, maybe three. Regardless, close enough to sprint.
Behind me something scrapes the pavement and I don’t even think, I put up my fists—even if they’re useless—and swing.
I connect with something fleshy and hard. It hurts, but I’m ready to swing again until I hear Aaron’s voice and see him shielding the eye I probably just blackened.
“Abs, what the hell?”
My fist is still raised and my entire body ready to react. He’s sweating, too, almost panting for breath. My initial relief is taken over by anger.
But it’s like he can’t see anything I’m feeling, or doesn’t remember what he promised. Because all he does is stare at me and say, “Christ, who are you? Muhammad Ali?”
I don’t ask how he knows about the opening in the fence that surrounds the football stadium, or why he hasn’t shown it to me before. I don’t ask how he knew I was here, or why he was out of breath. I follow him down into the belly of the stadium, toward grass so green it seems plastic, unreal. He lies right in the middle of the field, patting the spot next to him.
“I came back to the van,” he says when I lay down on the wet grass. “You weren’t there and I freaked. You can’t do this, Abs. You can’t be out here by yourself.”
Above us, the clouds drift across the moon, making everything seem darker than it really is. Aaron goes up on his elbow and stares down at me. I close my eyes.
“I know I said I wouldn’t leave,” he says.
I take almost a minute before I finally answer him. “That’s right. You did.”
What he says next isn’t what I expect.
“I didn’t pinky-dog swear.” I open my eyes and stare at him. Pinky-dog swearing was about as serious as you could get when we were kids. It held more weight than anything else—friends, fights, parental decrees. If you pinky-dog swore, you were bound. I don’t even remember who came up with it or why it held such reverence. It just did.
But now it feels like a gimmick.
“I didn’t think I had to,” I say.
Aaron’s face falls a bit. “You didn’t. I—it’s complicated, Abs. Okay?” He lies back down on the grass, our arms barely touching.
Of course it’s complicated. Nothing is simple. Not anymore. Everything has twisted and turned and now our problems are thicker than a blackberry bush in August. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start pruning away one thorny branch at a time. It doesn’t mean we can just run away. I sit up and I say, “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
He doesn’t move, just lies there with his arm draped over his eyes. Like he’s trying to disappear. “Do you trust me? Like, with anything?”
Of course. Always and with everything. Even when he does stuff like this, we’re connected. That’s always been the point. That’s what I want him to see with Mom and Dad.
“You know I do.”
“What if I told you I’m going to leave?”
I’m confused and I know my voice shows it when I say, “Leave?”
“If we could go right now, would you? Would you go back home?”
Habit tells me to send a prayer, something quick and silent, shooting into the sky—but I’m not sure that will help anymore. But if we could go home? If Dad woke up tomorrow morning and said, “All right. We’re leaving”?
The happiest day of my life. It’s so obvious, how could he even ask?
He rushes on, his words coming fast.
“We need to leave, because Mom and Dad never will,” he says. “They’re going to keep going to that church and spend every night in that van for the rest of their lives. Hear what I’m saying, Abs. They’re never taking us home, and we need to get out of here.”
I shake my head.
“I don’t have it all planned yet, but you need to be ready.”
I stand up, but I don’t know what to do. I can’t walk away, but I can’t form a response either. All I can say is, “You’re acting like an idiot. You know that, right?”
“Hey,” he says, standing up and taking my arm. I try to pull away, but he won’t let me. “I know you want to go home. Me, too. That’s what I’m talking about. Going back to school. Seeing our friends. Uncle Jake. Tell me you don’t want that.”
“I want all of us to go home,” I say.
“Me, too,” he says. “But they’re not going anywhere—you saw them tonight.”
Aaron drops his hands to his sides and opens his mouth, as if he’s already planned for whatever argument I’m going to offer next. But I don’t have one because he’s talking about abandoning Mom and Dad—something I have never considered to be part of the discussion. Thinking about it lights a new flame of indignation.
“How are we going to get home?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” he says.
“Of course you haven’t. Of course.”
“Are you saying I’m wrong? You want to be here?”
“You won’t leave,” I say, dismissing him.
Aaron doesn’t answer. It only makes me madder.
“Fine. Then I’m telling Mom and Dad.”
The words feel childish in my mouth, something I should’ve outgrown. But what else can I do? How else can I respond? I wait for him to come back with something—to give me any reason why this is a good idea, our only choice. He stands there, annoyingly silent.
“If you’re not going to say anything, I’m heading back.”
Still, nothing. So I start to move, and he stops me. “Wait.”
I do. For an entire minute as he stands there, kicking at the grass and trying to figure out how to sell me on what is easily his most ridiculous idea ever. Leaving. As if we would s
teal a car and drive it cross-country like some kind of terrible movie.
“Really, I don’t even know what this means,” I say.
“It means I can’t lose you to him, too,” Aaron finally says. “I won’t. So we need to get out of here, because I’m terrified you’re going to end up exactly like Mom and Dad.”
“That won’t happen,” I say quietly.
“I can’t take that chance—for either of us, Abs. We need to go. And if you won’t come with me, I’ll go alone. I really will.”
His words hit me like bullets, one after another, lodging themselves in my chest. Making me bleed. If Aaron left, I’d have no idea how to move, which way to go—how to function at all.
“We can go to Mom and Dad,” I repeat.
Both his voice and face go hard. “And tell them what?”
Aaron looks tired, as if he just carried me up one of these San Francisco hills. I keep opening my mouth but nothing comes out. Because what can I say? He’s right about Mom and Dad. We shouldn’t have to tell them this. They should know.
But is that it? Is that the final answer? They make a mistake and we leave?
“Can we go back to the van?” I say.
He nods, but not before he says, “I’m being serious, Abs. You need to be ready for this. Because I’m going with or without you.”
BEFORE
THE MOON WAS HIGH IN THE SKY, THE KIND DAD ALWAYS SAID you catch if you jumped high enough. I couldn’t stop giggling. Aaron was frustrated.
“Will you shut it? You’re going to get us caught.”
“They can’t hear us from all the way in the house,” I said. “Even if I stood on that stump and yelled, ‘Help! Help!’ they wouldn’t hear. They’re dead to the world in there.”
Aaron shook his head and said, “Hey, this is your party. But go ahead and do that if you want to see Dad come running with a baseball bat.”
“Well, he doesn’t have a bat, so . . .”
“Jesus, Abs. A frying pan, then. The point remains: shut up.”
I smiled into the dark night as we tromped through the field behind our house. The grass was knee high, itching my legs and hiding the footpath that led to the pond. We hadn’t been here for years.
When we were kids—when we never would have considered leaving the house after dark—this field was the biggest inconvenience we faced. Five minutes to walk, but less than two if you ran.
Aaron wouldn’t run, though. Not anymore. So we walked, going slower than we ever would’ve thought possible as kids. When every second spent out of the pond was considered wasted.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Aaron said. “The pond is nasty, in case you don’t remember. Like, really disgusting.”
“That’s the fun,” I said, leaning my shoulder into his. “It’s like science!”
That made him laugh. “Yeah, something like that.”
When we finally came to the pond, I stopped. Even in the moonlight, I saw the green film lying across the water, which, as Aaron pointed out, was never particularly clear in the first place. But it was as if someone had dumped a giant bowl of rotten oatmeal on top of the normal coating of green. The only visible water ran up against the small banks, as if it were trying to escape the slime.
“I bet, if we’re really careful,” Aaron said, “we’ll only need one shot of penicillin when we’re finished.”
I hit him, because it wasn’t funny. Of course he was laughing.
“Hey, what are you waiting for? Dive in, Abs. Looks refreshing as hell.”
I knew it was stupid to be upset, because it was just a pond and we could go and swim anytime we wanted at the public pool. But when I’d gone into Aaron’s room earlier that night and convinced him to come with me, it felt like a secret. The kind we used to keep when we were younger. And now it was over. He’d go back to his room and call one of his friends, spending all night on the phone.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you upset?”
“Yeah. I’m really mad at the algae,” I said.
Aaron looked at the pond and gave it the middle finger. “You see that, algae? That’s what I think of you.”
“Aaron . . .”
He turned to face me, smiling as he said, “Algae don’t care. It’s science.”
I smiled, but there was nothing to it. I walked over to the pond and dipped my toe into the clear edge. The ripples died only a foot away, swallowed by the thick green layer.
“Whatever,” I said. “It was a stupid idea anyway.”
“There are no stupid ideas,” Aaron said. “Only nasty ponds with prehistoric algae.”
He laughed, but I couldn’t help feeling robbed. When was the last time we’d done something like this together? Something that wasn’t with a bunch of his friends. We were so close, and it was frustrating to see it vanish that quickly.
“Let’s just go back to the house.”
Aaron clapped. “That’s the best idea you’ve had all night, Abs.”
I followed him back through the field, to our house. I expected him to open the door and end the night. But instead, he turned to me and said, “Commando time.”
In one quick movement he was up the birch tree that hung over our patio and onto the roof of the house. The moon outlined him in a subtle white as he whispered down to me, “Are you coming or not?”
I climbed the tree, moving slowly until he was holding my hand and leading me to the middle of the house, where the roof peaked. I had no idea if he’d done it before, or if the idea came to him on the walk back from the pond. Either way, we sat there, our legs stretched over the rough shingles still warm from the day. Telling stories about Mom and Dad. Laughing, one-upping, and doing our best to keep from rolling off the steep roof as we watched the moon drop from the sky.
SIX
WE SNUCK INTO THE VAN, MY HEART STILL DOUBLED UP AND in my ears. Even when we were safe and wrapped in our blankets, I couldn’t fall asleep. Aaron’s words haunted me, though not because I thought he would actually leave. Instead, it was the truth of what he said. Mom and Dad have not tried to get us out once. We eat in churches and sleep in the van like it’s normal. Like we will do this forever.
Thinking about it kept me up most of the night, and it’s only when I wake up that I’m sure I’ve slept. For a few perfect seconds, with my head under the covers, I could be anywhere. I could be at home. My neck wouldn’t ache from sleeping in a chair and everybody would be waiting for me to wake up, to come down for breakfast. If I can keep my eyes closed forever, maybe I won’t have to feel the anxiety grip my stomach in its familiar cold hand.
When I pull the blanket away from my head, Dad is talking quietly with Mom. It only takes a minute for them to notice me listening. Mom reaches back like she wants to touch my leg.
“Did we wake you, honey?” she asks.
I shake my head, and even though I know they love us and wouldn’t do anything to ruin that love, I can’t shake it: We shouldn’t be here. They should know.
“Gabs, it used to be you were the one waking us up,” Dad says, leaning his head toward Mom. “Remember that, Kat?”
Mom nods. Dad watches me the same way he did when I was younger, like he can’t believe how he ever got so lucky. I don’t know why I can’t open my mouth. Why I can’t just say: Do you see what’s happening to us? So when Dad turns back to me, I smile—hoping that maybe he’ll see how fake it is. How hard I’m trying to pretend I’m okay, happy.
He doesn’t.
“I was going to take a walk and grab a coffee,” Dad says. “Feel like stretching those legs?”
Dad walks just as fast as Aaron, but it’s his long legs more than anything else. I am sore from yesterday, my body tight as I jog to keep up with him. When we were younger, Dad would go out to run almost every night, coming back with his T-shirt darkened by sweat. When he sees me pull up beside him, he stops and says, “Am I walking too fast?”
“No. I’m just trying to get loose.”
Still, he slows dow
n and I can tell it’s killing him to move down the sidewalk at this pace. He nudges me in the shoulder and says, “Remember when we’d race in the parking lot of the mall? To the door?”
I still remember the first time I beat him, two years ago with Mom yelling behind us to watch the cars. But that mall was dead, like everything else in our town. All the big stores were gone, leaving behind a collection of flea market-style booths that were as aimless as the people who still shopped there.
“I remember blowing by you.”
He huffs. “You beat me once, girl. And I think I was injured.”
“Injured? Are you kidding me?”
He grabs his knee, moving it forward and back. “You know I’ve got a trick knee.”
“Well, anytime you want a rematch, old bones. Or should I say—old man.”
“Old man?” He shakes his head and then bends over into an awkward stretch, still talking to himself. “Old man.”
It surprises me how easily we’re able to fall back into the good-natured joking, as if we were walking through that same mall without a care in the world. And at the same time, it’s convicting. When did I let Aaron convince me that this familiarity was so easily lost?
“I’ll race you to the store,” I say. He probably won’t even be able to get out of the stretch he’s in, let alone run down the sidewalk with me. But then he’s gone, yelling “Go!” and moving faster than I thought he could.
I’m jumping off curbs, laughing as I chase him. Even with the head start, I’m beside him in less than a block. When he sees me pull up next to him, he pumps his arms even harder. But it’s pointless; I blow by him—past the restaurant on the corner, the men sitting in a circle at the park’s entrance, touching the store first, and easily.
When Dad finally shows up, all I can make out through the wheezing is: “Trick knee.”
The grocery store is fancier than anything we had in North Carolina, full of organic this and fair-trade that. We never would have shopped at a place like this before, and the only reason we’re here now is the free coffee.
