The Tension of Opposites

by Kristina McBride

  “What kind of assignments?”

  “The first one was to recall everything that happened that day. When he took me.”

  “Will you tell me?” I asked, the soft words springing from my mouth before I could stop them. “What happened, I mean. I’ve spent two years envisioning different stuff. And I just want to know—”

  “Everyone just wants to know.” Elle stood. “You’re exactly like everyone else, aren’t you?”

  I shook my head, wishing I could grasp the words that floated on the air between us and stuff them back through my lips, swallow them whole, bury them deep inside. “No, Elle. I just—”

  “All you want is to know every sickening detail.”

  “Elle—”

  “People don’t have to ask. Their darting eyes, never making contact with mine, scream all their questions. How’d he get you? How’d he keep you? Why. Didn’t. You. Tell?” Elle leaned down. I scooted to the end of her bed. When she stood up, the butterfly notebook lay in one hand while the fingers of her other hand tore through pages until she found what she was looking for. “You wanna know?” she screamed, every part of her shaking. “Here!”

  She threw the open notebook on my lap and stormed out of the room, leaving me alone with her words. Leaving me alone with the answers I’d been waiting two years to learn.

  I don’t understand why it’s so flipping important.

  Who cares how? Or why?

  It happened. End of story.

  But Shrinky Dink wants details. She says the memories will heal me.

  I wonder if you can really heal a person who’s been ripped open and gutted.

  But, whatever.

  I’m riding my bike feeling the wind rush through my hair and thinking about the graham crackers and Hershey’s Kisses tucked in the cabinet over the toaster oven.

  I hear my name I stop I turn.

  There’s a man in a car he tells me my mom is in the hospital he works with her.

  I fall for it.

  Bam. My bike drops to the ground.

  Slam. The car door closes me in.

  Whoosh. I am gone.

  Gonegonegonegonegonegonegonegonegonegone gonegone.

  I look at him he smiles his teeth are crooked and need a good bleaching.

  “You thirsty?” he asks and passes me a plastic bottle of Coke.

  And. Then. There. Are. The. Flashes.

  A small, dark room a dank-smelling mattress the slimy eggs he makes me eat.

  The metallic-tasting drink that always brings me sleep sweetsleep.

  The gun pressing against my bruised back the soft spot under my chin my throbbing temple.

  My feet scraping the concrete steps my fingers trailing the cold brick wall my eyes blinded by the harsh light illuminating the door.

  A cold shower his coffee breath gagging me I am shivering watching red-brown streams rush down my legs swirl around the drain.

  At least part of me escapes.

  Funny, the first time I saw my face on a milk carton, on the flyers posted at the mini-mart down the street, all I could think was how much I HATED that picture. I mean, really, couldn’t they have picked a better one? It was bad enough it ended up in my seventh-grade yearbook, but to have it splashed all over the news made me want to die. My flat hair and half smile. That stupid photographer caught me before I was ready. I wondered if he remembered. If he had the sense to feel bad.

  Funny to think how stupid I was.

  Funny to think how much I didn’t know.

  Not so funny, though,

  how he kep me quiet.

  “You’ve been crying,” Elle said from her seat on the couch.

  My hand flew to my cheeks, fingers rubbing the slight swell beneath my eyes. “I rinsed my face with cold water.”

  “I can still tell.” Elle shifted under the pale yellow blanket spread across her legs. I remembered making a fort with it years ago, stretching it from the back of the couch to the bar stools that were now pushed against the far wall, and whispering and giggling under its shelter.

  I waved my hand in the air, indicating the wide space of the Pendeltons’ basement. The recessed lighting was on its dimmest setting, allowing Elle the perfect hideout. “But it’s so dark down here. Am I totally transparent?”

  Elle shook her head. Rolled her eyes. “That little red dot you always get when you cry. It’s there. Under your right eye.”

  I walked to the arm of the couch and leaned against it. “It’s crazy. How well you know me.”

  Elle fluttered her lashes. “Don’t kid yourself, Tessa. I don’t know you any better than you know me.”

  “But we’ve been best friends since we were—”

  “You do realize that I’ve been gone for two years, right?”

  I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say. This huge space was cracking open between us, gaping in front of me, daring me to jump to her side to try to keep her from disappearing all over again. But all I could do was stand there and stare.

  “Everything’s changed.” Elle jutted her chin forward. “We can’t just go back to the way we were.”

  “But—”

  “But what?” Elle leaned forward, her eyes glaring at me. “You got what you wanted, right? Now that you know what really happened, you can leave. Go tell all of your loser friends what they’re dying to know.”

  I shook my head. She didn’t understand. And I didn’t have a clue about how to make her.

  “Close the door on your way up.” Elle grabbed the remote from the coffee table and clicked on the television. The pale blue light bounced off her face as she gave me one last hard look. “I want to be alone.”

  Saturday,

  October 31

  10

  In Sync

  When I pulled out of the Pendeltons’ driveway, I switched off my radio, deciding to make my way home in silence. The sun had set, and all that was left in its wake were creeping shadows that shaded the world with a purplish tint. It could have been all the kids in costumes running from house to house, carrying pillowcases and plastic buckets filled with sugary treats. Or the flickering luminaries and jack-o’-lanterns that lined the street. But I was pretty sure the real reason the night felt so eerie was Elle. And that journal.

  I remembered the last Halloween we had spent together. Dressed as Thing One and Thing Two, Noelle and I had pranced around our neighborhood for hours. Our blue Afro wigs had been fluffed high on our heads, and we had collapsed into giggle fits each time we’d looked at each other. But the best part was the freedom. Back then, most parents were fearless and chose to stay home.

  I let out a long sigh as I glanced at the packs of moms and dads, bundled and cluttering the sidewalks. Centerville was no longer safe or untouched. Not since the middle of August two years ago.

  After turning onto my street, I noticed a car parked in front of my house. I didn’t think much of it; our next-door neighbors had two young children, and their grandparents came over for all the photo-worthy holidays. But as I approached my driveway, I realized the car was familiar. And someone was leaning against the black hood.

  He stepped away from the Mustang and walked toward my car as I pulled to a stop. But I couldn’t move. My hand froze on the key ring. I didn’t have time to think before Max’s face peered in my driver’s-side window, his hand perched on the handle of my door.

  His lips moved, and I heard the muffled sound of his voice rising at the end of the sentence. A question. And I was all out of answers.

  I shook my head.

  He pulled my door open and spoke again. “You gonna come out of there or what?” He held out his hand, offering help.

  I didn’t understand how he possibly could have known, but I definitely needed steadying.

  “I just wanted to check in.” He pulled his cap off his head, and his curls spilled out around his face.

  I watched as, behind him, a stream of kids ran through the trampled grass of my front yard and hopped up the steps to my porch.
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  “You know,” he added, “to see how it went with Elle.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Unfortunately, my lips opened and let my very first thought escape without any censor.

  “Why are you being so nice?”

  He looked away then, facing the closed garage door. I couldn’t tell anything from his profile, and I wondered if he was mad. Or maybe he was just plain done with me. In that moment, I was kind of scared he might walk away. I had to plant my feet on the hard ground to keep from swaying forward and placing my hands on his chest in the hopes that he might curl his arms around me in a deep hug.

  “Trick-or-treat?” A blast of voices shrieked through the air, breaking Max’s eyes away from whatever had held his attention. He turned toward my house, and we both watched in silence as my father appeared in the doorway, smiling at the kids who stood in the bright porch light. Tinker Bell sparkled, the Incredible Hulk flexed, and the pirate with the macaw on his shoulder arrghed.

  My dad dropped a handful of candy bars into the outstretched bags. The kids shouted hurried thank-yous before turning away, running back to their parents, and dashing off to the next house. My father watched them go, stepping backward into the foyer. Just before he swung the door closed, he caught sight of Max and me standing in the shadow of the driveway. He stopped, unsure, I could tell, of what to do. Slowly, he raised his hand and waved. Max and I waved back. Then my father closed the door, and I heard the brassy thunk of the door knocker hitting its bed.

  “Come sit with me,” Max said. He reached out for my hand, then stopped several inches short and waited. I reached out (it felt a little like some crazy magnetism took over), and his hand enveloped mine. For a second, we just stood there, kind of breathing in the moment. And then Max started toward his car, pulling me along with him.

  We sat on the edge of the curb, listening to the patter of feet scurrying behind us. From all around, little voices called out with excitement.

  “I’m being nice because I like you,” Max said softly. “And I’m here tonight because I thought you might need to talk.”

  I wrapped my arms around my legs and rested my chin on my knees. “It went okay,” I said. “It’s hard, though. Coop’s right. She’s different.”

  “I’m sure,” Max said.

  “I think she’s really angry.”

  “She’s got a lot to be angry about.”

  “Yeah.” I started to shiver and squeezed my arms tighter around my legs.

  “Cold?” Max scooted so close against my side that the gap between us disappeared.

  I felt the heat of his shoulder, his side, his thigh, and wanted to melt into him. “It’ll work itself out, won’t it?” I asked.

  Max looked at me, the light from the luminaries across the street dancing in his eyes. “What’ll work out?” he asked.

  “Everything with Elle.” I thought for a second that he might have been hoping I meant something different. Like us, maybe.

  He looked down at the pavement. Pulled his feet toward him with a long scraping sound.

  “Being home after all this time.” My words shook. “Fitting in. Finding her way.”

  Max took a deep breath. He reached around my shoulders and pulled me in tight. “Yeah.” His hand rubbed along my upper arm, firm and slow. My shoulders relaxed. I allowed my body to slump into his.

  “You really think?” My vision was getting swimmy, and I couldn’t make it stop. I hoped Max was totally unaware, but I had to keep swiping at my cheeks, and I did that whole stutter-sigh thing a few times.

  “I’m sure,” he whispered, his breath warming my cheek.

  I finally rested my head against his shoulder and we sat together in silence. At one point, I noticed that our breathing was perfectly in sync.

  Saturday,

  November 7

  11

  Lie to Me

  “I don’t understand all the reporters,” I said, stretching my legs out on the backseat of my father’s car. The plastic bag next to me crinkled against my thigh. “It’s like their brains aren’t attached to their mouths.”

  “Don’t let them upset you, honey.” The flicker from the headlights of a passing car washed over my father’s head and shoulders. The skin on the back of his neck reminded me of a smooth rock. “They’re just doing their jobs.”

  “Gossiping. Spreading rumors. Telling blatant lies.” I looked out the window at the final glow of the sunset, at the raindrops racing sideways on the outside of the car’s windows, at the flat grassy pastures where horses and cows spent endless days. “Seems to me like they should’ve just stayed in high school.”

  My mother twisted in the passenger seat, her plump lips and rounded cheeks forming a half smile. “They wouldn’t get paid to be in high school.”

  The tires beneath us jumped a division in the pavement, the sound rumbling through the car.

  “Last night I watched this panel of total morons discuss Elle and the kidnapping. They started talking about that Stockholm syndrome thing, practically saying she’d wanted to be there with him.”

  “I know it sounds odd,” my father said. “But the Stockholm syndrome is a very real response some victims have toward their captors.”

  “I think it’s a bunch of crap.” Outside my window, three fat raindrops merged into one and dashed toward the rear of the car.

  “In a way, it helps make sense of the situation.” My mother turned and faced me again. Her silver earrings, the birthday gift she had chosen while we’d shopped through outlet stores earlier in the day, sparkled in the headlights of the car behind us. “Allowing herself to relate to him just might be the reason she’s alive today.”

  “Elle might be really pissed off, Mom. Even messed up from her two years away,” I said. “But she’s not mental.”

  My dad chuckled. “No one’s saying she’s mental, hon.”

  “Just that she used the defenses she had available to her,” my mother said gently.

  I closed my eyes, wanting to shut out the reality of our words. That we weren’t simply discussing the story of a person we didn’t know made me sick to my stomach. But after stuffing myself too full of filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes at my mom’s favorite restaurant, riding in the car with my eyes closed made me feel even worse, so I opened them again.

  “I looked up Stockholm syndrome, you know,” I said. “And it does not describe Elle. She wasn’t loyal. She didn’t form some emotional bond with him. She’s certainly not defending him.” My voice cracked, and I swallowed before continuing. “She even made sure he’d be caught.”

  “Yet she stayed.” My mother was facing forward now, but her words were strong. They lifted above the sound of rain pelting the windshield, the steady swiping of the wipers, the thrum of the tires running on the highway.

  “That’s not because of some dumb syndrome.” I tugged at the seat belt crossing my chest and slid toward the front seat. “It’s like he broke her or something.

  “Here’s my question,” I said, sliding back again and staring out at the darkness. “If he had her so brainwashed, or Stockholm syndromed or whatever, that she stayed with him for two years”—I paused, biting at my lip—“what made her leave?”

  “Something big certainly pushed her to plan her own escape.” My mother looked back at me, her eyes tired and sad. “The truth is that we might never know her motivation. And we have to be okay with that.”

  I ducked against the window again. The tires jumped the road, and my forehead bumped the hard glass. I wished that the hum of the car’s engine could ease us back into the comfortable silence that had enveloped us when we’d first left the restaurant. That the shadowed world pressing against the car would make everything so sleepy our mouths wouldn’t be able to form words.

  “I like the shirt you picked out today,” my mother said, her voice soft.

  “My favorite thing about your birthday,” I said, “is that we all get stuff.”

  “It’s not about stuff, Tessa,” my mother sai
d.

  “Right.” I nodded. “It’s about bonding.”

  “You’ll learn,” my father said. “Family is the most important thing.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I reached into the bag on the leather seat, ran my hand along the small buttons strung like beads down the shirt’s front, and imagined Max’s fingers slipping each tiny circle through its own little opening. I closed my eyes and felt the silk of his hair brush against my cheek. And then I shoved him out of my mind. As much as I wanted him there, I couldn’t allow him to stay.

  My mother looked over her shoulder. “Remember that last time Elle’s mom and I took you girls shopping?”

  I stared at her, the memory coming back in one brilliant flash. “Back-to-school clothes? It was right before … she went missing.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That was fun. Maybe we can invite them to do something like that again. A mother-daughter day might be just what they need.”

  I pictured Noelle posing in front of a three-way mirror in the dressing room of J.Crew. Wearing a denim miniskirt and a black tank top that were barely within the limits of the school dress code, she twirled around so the skirt fanned out, showing off her long legs.

  “Think this makes me look older?” she’d asked, fluffing her hair.

  “How much older are you going for?” I stood behind her, pulling my wavy hair back with a thick headband I’d found near the register, wishing I’d opted for highlights a shade or two lighter the day before at the salon.

  Noelle shrugged. “Dunno,” she said. “How old do you think the hot guy is who’s out there folding jeans?” She turned and fluttered her eyelashes. It was a dangerous look.

  “Gross, Noelle. He’s probably in college. Or maybe older.” I tore the headband from my hair and let my hand fall to my side. My hair swooped into my face.

  “Yeah, but he’s hot.” Elle turned and shook her butt at me. “It’s just a test,” she said. “If he asks for my number, I’ll know I look at least eighteen.”

  “And then what?” I asked. “Older guys expect things, Noelle. You don’t—”