by Ginger Scott
“So he, like…saved you twice then, huh?” she says, resting her hand on the back of her seat and laying her chin on top.
“Taryn…”
Her body relaxes with a slow exhale, and finally she rolls her head to the side and looks me in the eyes. They’re glassy, and I feel like shit.
“I wouldn’t have told anyone. You could have trusted me, and I wouldn’t have made fun of you,” she says, sniffling through her words and running her red eyes along her sleeve.
I rest my head sideways to mirror her.
“I know,” I say, reaching forward to touch her. She lets her hand fall down to mine and we lock fingers.
“That’s some fucked up shit,” she says, laughing through tears.
I laugh, too.
“T, that’s not even close to how fucked up this shit gets,” I say, closing my lips into a tight smile that eventually rests in a straight line. “Come inside so I can change, and I’ll fill you in. I want to check in at the Jungle Gym, see if I can start back early. I want to buy a car, and Rebecca said a friend of hers owns one of those hand-control businesses that retrofits cars so you can brake and control the speed with your hands. Anyhow, they could maybe set me up for cheap.”
My friend nods with a smile. We both leave her car, and the rumbling truck down the road, for the quiet of my bedroom. It takes me five minutes to change. I spend the next hour telling Taryn the unbelievable story that is my life.
And in the end, there are three of us who now need to lie to the faces of people we love—all because Wesley Stokes came home with a story that’s so much better to believe.
Eight
I miss mopping the floors at night at the Jungle Gym. I’ve been back to work for exactly four days, and I’ve already been vomited on, threatened by an angry mom whom I didn’t give the correct change to, and offered sixteen babysitting gigs that I wouldn’t take if I were desperate. I go there right from school. I work, I go to rehab, and I go to bed. Homework gets done in the morning just after I run, or in study hall. Sometimes at night, but once a procrastinator…well, some habits are hard to quit. Turns out quitting smoking was easier than quitting putting off algebra.
My self-inflicted packed schedule does mean one thing, though; I haven’t seen one of the Stokes boys in days.
Things will be harder soon. Wes hasn’t come back to school yet. Taryn said his parents were being cautious and over-protective because of how much attention they’re still getting and everything Wes has been through. They worry about his health. They’ve had tests and scans done, made visits to neurologists—all resulting in a clean bill of health.
If they only knew.
Every day, at least one media truck is parked on his street. I don’t linger, and I always run by quickly for fear that he’ll be outside and we’ll have to interact. So far, I’ve managed to avoid him for four complete days. Taryn says I need to forgive him, and even though Kyle doesn’t say as much, I know he wants me to as well. They’ve both spent a lot of time with him over the last few days, but always with the rest of the family, so Kyle hasn’t been able to talk about what really happened with him.
I don’t want to talk. I’m not sure I ever will. Taryn begged me to go to the Stokes house with her yesterday after my job. I went to work out with Rebecca instead, even though I have questions—a question, really—why did you come back if it puts me in danger? Thing is, I can’t ask that question without getting past the fact that he never wanted to see me again. I think about it every goddamn night when I look at the photo I picked up in the field, my photo, which has forever been contaminated by lies scribbled in marker by a delusional nut job.
I still can’t seem to throw the photo away, though. And it’s not because I took it. It’s because, ruined or not, the memory from the day I took it still feels special. The only boy I’ve ever loved drove me to my favorite place, and he laid his shirt on the ground so I could take a picture. That was maybe the most honest moment I’ve ever had with anyone, and I want to protect it from all of my damn doubt. That moment meant something.
I deleted the texts from Wes. Not all of them—just the ones I knew were from Shawn. I’ve put a few small details together. I’m pretty sure Shawn picked up the photo when I saw him at the Stokes’s house as he was collecting a few of Wes’s things. I also know that he’s the one who paid to keep Wes’s phone line open under the pretense that maybe somehow Wes’s phone would work and he’d be able to reach out to them from wherever he went. I learned that little tidbit when I filled Taryn in on everything. She told me it was something TK mentioned. They all talked about what a miracle it was that his phone somehow worked enough after being soaked in the raging river, and after months of hiding out in a church shelter, that authorities were able to help him charge it to call his family to come take him home.
Miracle.
Man-made.
Seat of your pants cover-up operation.
All I can think about now, staring at the stupid photo with stupid words written on the back in stupid marker, is what trouble they both must have gone through to construct the fabric of this latest lie. Clearly, it’s the exact same phone model he had before—but more than that, I wonder if Wes bothered to truly run the battery down before slipping into that shelter and claiming to have had a jolt of memory. I wonder if he just picked any old shelter, or if he vetted them, knowing one day he might need to return just like this.
And of course, I wonder if he’s back because he senses that my story is about to end—just like Shawn warned.
“Don’t be stupid, Joss. You’re better than that,” I whisper to myself. Superheroes aren’t real, and there isn’t any trouble that can be worse than what I’ve already survived.
I flip off my light at that thought and fall back into the softness of my bed, untangling my blanket enough to flop it across my stomach. The air from my fan blows the loose strands of my hair around my face, and I count on the tickling sensation to keep me awake a little while longer. I still need to shower, and my leg needs to breathe. I worked my quads hard tonight. We’re going to start working out on the field more, getting me ready for the season—for the scouts.
The familiar sound comes just as my clock flips to ten thirty, so I hold my breath and listen to the routine. My dad’s keys jingle, the back door creaks then slams shut, and the motor of his car purrs while the headlights shine through my window for exactly eight seconds as he backs out of our driveway and goes…somewhere. He isn’t drunk when he comes home. Or if he is, he’s been hiding it well. History has taught me that my dad is poor at hiding his addiction, though, so apparently, he’s good at hiding something else.
I wait for ten or fifteen minutes before I finally make my way to the shower and get ready for bed. While I untangle my wet hair with my fingers, I slide open a message from Kyle on my phone.
House is free tomorrow night. We’re going to watch TK play, then kick it here for a little after party. I’ll drive.
TK’s playing football. Taryn has not stopped bragging about her boyfriend and how amazing he is. It kinda makes me want to take up football just so I can get better at it than he is to shut her up, but that’s just my bad attitude talking—the part of me that’s all screwed up from falling for a boy.
A boy who is apparently the chosen one without a cape.
I write Kyle back.
Who’s coming to this party?
I toss my phone on my bed while I slip from my towel and balance to pull my favorite T-shirt over my head. I run my fingers along the threadbare patch over my stomach where the blue waves of Huntington Beach are so faded that the color is actually more of a gray now. One day I’ll have to throw it away, but I plan on watching it fall apart. I love the water, and this shirt reminds me of a happier place.
My phone buzzes, so I slide back into my bed, rolling to my back and holding my phone above me.
Everyone’s coming.
I stare at Kyle’s response for nearly a minute, until my fingers start to ting
le from falling asleep hovering above my head. My hands flop to my sides, my phone clutched in the right one when I feel it buzz again. Unable to resist, I lean on my elbow and look.
It’s a big deal to our friends. To TK. You should come.
And before I can begin typing, another comes through.
You can’t hide forever. You’re doing the exact same thing he did.
My lips push tight at the corners, and my eyes haze as I zero in on that last part.
I’m coming.
I send the first part, but hold my thumbs poised over the keyboard while I think about Kyle’s accusation. I’m not hiding. I’m right here. If Wes really wanted to see me, all he’d have to do is knock on my door. He’s avoiding me just as much as I am him, and really, he’s made it pretty clear that I was never supposed to see him again. I type.
And there is nothing the same about me and Wes.
I plug my phone in and flip it over on my night table, done defending myself. But for the next hour, I toss around my sheets, unable to sleep. I get lost in the pattern the slits in my blinds make on my ceiling. The streetlight out front flickers, and it’s been doing that for nearly a year without anyone bothering to repair it. By now I find it comforting—I don’t think I want it to change.
I knew I had this week to pretend. Maybe next, if I’m lucky. But Wes will come back to school soon. My father will still love him. And now Dad feels beholden to him for saving me and trying to rescue him. More than anything, though, is the way my heart will break every single time I see the blue of his eyes. I will always want to go back to before, to un-know what I know, or travel back in time and have him fight like hell to get back to me.
I’m not sure when the shadows on my ceiling completely disappeared, but I blinked and everything was suddenly black in my room. The streetlamp finally quit on me, too. I chuckle at the thought as I stretch my arms above my head and exhale heavily.
I have never been afraid of the dark. When I was really young, I’d always win hide-and-seek games because I’d bury myself in the depths of the darkest spaces. When I slept at Taryn’s house, she always wanted to keep a light on. When we were here, I’d torture her by making everything as dark as possible. She told me stories of ghosts and spirits to try to scare me into turning the lights back on, but nothing made me flinch. My pulse never raced in blackness.
But something about tonight is off.
I sit up, but keep my head low, my mind suddenly filled with worry that someone will see me through my window. I stare at the cracks in the blinds, watching for movement, but the only thing that I see is the gentle sway of the vinyl slats caused by my ceiling fan. I swallow quietly, slide from my bed, and lay low on the floor, dragging my body with my arms, my prosthetic just to my right. I rest with my back against the wall just below my window and pull my leg back on, my movements are unhurried and silent. It feels like it’s been a minute since I took a breath.
Turning slowly, I pause when my eyes find a small opening where my blinds meet the inside of my window. It takes me a few seconds to adjust my focus through the small space, but when I do, I’m able to make out the form of a car parked outside my house on our side of the street. It’s the kind of car that doesn’t belong here—black or dark blue in color, a curvaceous body that screams Porsche or Camaro—and no one inside.
My mind starts to betray me, and for a second, I think I hear two men talking, but when I turn my head and cup my ear toward the window, the only sounds I notice are the repetitive clicks of my fan blades.
Leaning forward, I grab my phone from my night table and open it, ready to call for help. I don’t though, because really—it’s just a car on the street. For the next hour, I lay on my arm, which is resting along the windowsill. I look out through the bottom of the blinds, a cap from one of my old water bottles wedged in the space to keep a small slit open for me to spy. It’s a pendulum of me convincing myself to go back to bed one minute and committing to standing guard the next.
When my clock flips to midnight, though, I roll my tired eyes and curse Shawn Stokes for getting to me, too. He’s already corrupted Wes with his theories. I hate that I’ve given them as much of me as I have.
My finger wraps around the cap and I start to slide it out, for some reason still not ready to break my cover. Eyes trained on the plastic piece, I have it nearly out when my finger stops, catching the falling blind as I see a body rush past my window, only a few feet from my house.
I catch my own gasp, sure the immediate pounding in my chest will give me away to whomever is outside. Surely it sounds like the bass in one of my favorite songs. I slide my phone in my hand, maneuvering it while my eyes remain focused on the scene outside. My breath is ragged, and my jaw is clenched so hard my teeth might crack.
I’m about to hit the emergency button for 911 when two men come into view at the end of my driveway. They point to a house across the street, and I hear them laugh. They look like they’re in their thirties, but I’m not sure—their details aren’t defined because of the lack of light. I’m able to capture enough that I see one of them pull out his phone and hold it to his ear. He holds up his other hand and gestures toward the car, and within a breath, they both climb inside and drive away.
It takes me another hour to find feeling in my fingertips and to ease the nausea in my stomach. By two in the morning, I’m fairly certain they were looking for another house—maybe a party or friend’s home. I justify that a nice car like that wouldn’t be interested in doing something bad in a neighborhood like mine. There’s nothing to gain here. Nobody with anything worth any value at all.
By three in the morning, I become certain that I made the whole thing up. I’m sure there was a car, and maybe people. But they were just outside. Nothing strange happened at all. I’m exhausted, and maybe my emotions are a little ragged from the last few weeks…and months. I roll my eyes as I finally make my way back to bed, and I lie back after plugging my phone into the charger again.
I’m almost convinced.
Only…the light outside. It’s back on.
Nine
TK is wasting his time playing football at this school. We’ve never been good. And as good as he is, he’s only one guy. He can’t do everything. Though, he sure as hell tries.
“Baby, you were so amazing out there. They just need to get you the ball more,” Taryn says as her boyfriend finally comes out of the locker room.
Kyle, Levi, and Wes have been waiting for us in the parking lot. I followed Taryn to the locker room with the hope of talking her into just taking me home, but she didn’t drive. She rode with Wes and Levi. I rode with Kyle. And I know exactly how the next fifteen minutes is going to play out—they’re all plotting to get us alone together in the same vehicle. I’ll walk first.
The game was a decent enough distraction from him, but my eyes must be trained when he is anywhere in my vicinity, because despite forcing Taryn to sit several rows away from the boys, I found Wes in every crowd he was in for four quarters of football.
During the first half, it was much of the same he’s experienced for the last week. It’s the hype and frenzy of the lost boy found. Girls came up to him all night, giggling and asking him questions about coming home. A few teachers stopped to see him, along with the cop that patrols the parking lot and stands during our home games. I couldn’t hear a word from where I was sitting, but I could tell from the slight movements Wes made, and the few times his lips opened and closed that his answers were all short. Of course, everyone would understand and leave him, figuring the stress of it all is still so hard. He’s just trying to get back to normal, find his way after being so lost. He’s…fragile.
But I know better. He’s just trying not to make his lie so big he can’t control it.
“What’d you think, Joss? How’d I look out there?” TK brushes his arm against mine, his other slung around Taryn’s neck as we walk out into the parking lot toward the two trucks—my only two options.
“You play football a
bout as good as you play baseball,” I say.
TK chuckles.
“I’m gonna go ahead and pretend you’re paying me a compliment, Cherry,” he says.
I turn to walk backward and flip him off. He knows I hate that nickname, so he saves it like a right hook, when he has no other way to get back at me for teasing him.
Taryn recalls a few of her favorite plays as we walk, feeding her boyfriend’s ego while forgetting to mention the two dropped passes that, frankly, he should have caught. All I hear in my head, though, is the conversation about to happen about me and Wes. Someone will need to ride in one car, and then someone else will need to be with Kyle, or someone forgot they needed to pick up whatever at the store, and then bam—I’m alone in a truck with Wes.
The boys are all leaning on the front of Kyle’s truck now, their arms folded, heads turning as each takes a turn speaking. Still several feet away, I consider bolting—just sprinting the entire way home, crawling into my bed and waiting for a weird car to show up and the streetlamp to go out. I’d rather feel afraid than angry and hurt. A few more steps, though, and I’ve come too close to find the courage to run. The part of me that wants to end up in a truck with him, that wants to be forced together, to talk, to scream and shout—that piece of me has taken over driving my body. The hurt part is too weak to fight.
My eyes find his even in the dark. Our faces are the same—flat mouths, heavy eyelids; the weight of things both said and unsaid pulling us down.
“Shoot, TK…I forgot the beer at my house. Can I just go with you to get it?” I breathe in as Taryn speaks, my eyes still on Wes’s.
“I was going to swing by the store, too. My dad hasn’t gone shopping, and there ain’t shit to eat in my house,” Kyle says.
Before Levi can make the suggestion, I roll my eyes and walk up to Wes, pinching the long sleeve of his gray ringer-tee as I walk by, jerking it lightly then letting go.
