“I am healed,” he says. “Enough to function. But the pain persists. Especially in my head.”
“He smokes pot for the pain,” Mia says, excited, still wanting to participate.
“Cannabis has eased my symptoms, yes.”
“Okay, but what does this have to do with why you’re willing to drive me?”
“Before cannabis was legalized, I was registered to use it medically. But there were times when the amount I was allowed was not enough. Mia helped me a couple of years ago.”
“You helped him get weed?”
She glances back at me, rolling her eyes. “Sure, Dills. I’m the neighbourhood dealer. I can hook you up. Did I forget to mention that?”
I give her a look, something along the lines of “Sarcasm Doesn’t Help Anyone.” But I realize that she can’t see me. Right. I feel like an idiot. “So how —”
“She hid my supply when the police raided the field house.”
“You did what?”
“It wasn’t a big deal,” she says.
“Yes, it was,” Gal says.
“How much are we talking about?”
Turns out it wasn’t a truckload or anything, but definitely enough to have gotten Gal and Mia in serious trouble. Now he can walk into a dispensary and pick out what he wants, but before legalization, his own dealer would sell him enough to keep him supplied for a while. One day Mia walked in on him when he was about to light up, just as the police rolled up, cherries flashing. He told her to leave. Instead, she hid the bag in the waistband of her shorts.
“The cops hardly even looked at me,” she laughs. “They had a warrant to search everywhere else but didn’t think twice about the bulge on my belly. Just another fat girl.”
“Wait,” I say. “That’s … you’re not …”
“Exactly,” she says. “But kind of funny, too.”
“They didn’t wonder why a teenage girl was hanging out with the park manager in his gloomy office?”
“They joked about Gal robbing the cradle, but —”
“They had to leave when they could not find anything,” Gal says.
I watch her and Gal laugh about it. But I’m not settled. Too close for comfort, in so many ways that I can’t begin to pin them down. I’m glad for their strange friendship — you can’t always decide which ones will survive, can you? — but feel lost, not playing much of a part in it. But that’s not entirely true, is it? Here I am. Here they are, helping create this piece of my story. And Aunt Viv back home, her car still in the shop, taking Sean out for a long dinner and a movie to keep him from thinking about work.
She hacked the parole system for me. My little blue dot, which turns red when I’m in breach, now moving in short paths around the park and my house. The online equivalent of putting a bank’s video feed on a loop while you rob it. The guard snoozing in front of the blinking monitor. No one the wiser. Leaving after work on a Friday was her idea. If anything goes wrong, maybe a reduced weekend staff or Viv supplying Sean with her own distractions will delay anyone noticing too closely. I asked her what would happen if Sean found out, but she laughed and said her digital trail is clean. All he could do is suspect her. They’d have to break up, of course. I said that would seriously suck. “Whatever,” she said. “He’s not in my league.” I’m not sure I believed her.
Mia and Gal’s conversation and laughter drop away, leaving the hush of the wind and the tires on the pavement. Mia pulls out her phone. The screen glows against her face, blue in the darkness. Softens her profile more. I want to reach out and rest the back of my hand against her cheek.
“Everything is still a go, team,” she says.
“I do not like that your parents do not know,” Gal says.
“We’ve been through this.”
“They will be worried.”
“Not until the morning.”
Mia told them she was heading into the gym for a monster workout to prepare for her upcoming season. It’s not unusual for her to be out late when she’s at peak training, and they won’t wait up. She said her father grumbled in his usual way about the appropriateness of her independence. Her mother simply made an extralarge protein smoothie, like she always does before an intense session. Knowing the importance of sustained energy. Tissue repair.
I agree with Gal and I agree with Mia. I hate the idea of our parents being in the dark. Most of the time we make mistakes in the moment and without a thought to the cost. But this trip to Windsor is on its own level. A more premeditated kind of disappointment for the people who’ve given everything so we can be safe and loved. Still, a necessity. Mia knows her parents, so the decision rests with her. Just before we left, she said, “It sucks, but there’s literally no scenario that sees them being okay with this.”
Mom would’ve locked me in the house rather than let me go. Or worse still, offer to drive, even though the car’s dead and she isn’t ready to face Jesse. Still, for me she’d stare down every demon and walk me right into the hospital so I wouldn’t have to be alone. She’d feel everything yet again.
Up ahead, a police cruiser appears over a rise, moving fast in the other direction, lights on, red and blue. We all tense up, as though the plan has already crumbled and the authorities have been brought in to find us. The lights zip past, and Gal and Mia exhale. I have to close my eyes against the lights still burning behind my eyelids. They flashed all day and night after the shooting, the red of the ambulances and fire trucks, the red and blue of the police. Impossible strobe patterns glinting against the sunlight as we were escorted and carried from the school. Slashing through the night when I finally left the hospital.
“Dills? Are you all right?”
I open my eyes. Mia has turned to the back seat, concerned. I guess she can see me after all. All the light is behind her. I can’t see her eyes, though. I nod and attempt a smile and turn my head to look out the side window. But you can’t look through glass into darkness, can you? All I see is the darkened outline of my own self and the dimmed reflections from the car’s interior.
Somewhere to the north, off to our right, are the woods where Jesse taught me how to walk without making a sound. He was so quiet when he stalked, which is what you call it when you hunt something. He became his surroundings. Watching him move like a spirit through the brush and trees made his former life clearer to me. The things he had to do to succeed and survive. Deadly things that needed absolute silence. “Never hurry,” he said. “Speed makes you careless, and careless makes sounds. But you can’t go too slow, either, because the deer won’t wait for you. Clear as mud?” Hard ground? Heel first, roll to the toe. Leaves and debris? Toe first, testing the surface for the things that can crackle and snap and betray your presence. No talking, just hand signals and eye contact. Every step its own performance. Then the next, with the same considerations. Again and again. It was this exhausting mix of pause and motion, halting but intentional. Getting anywhere took forever.
But now? Twenty below the speed limit feels slow, but it’ll get us there. And when we arrive, this will feel like nothing at all, like we arrived as fast as blue and red light. Faster than I thought possible.
INVOLVED
Mia uses her phone’s GPS to direct Gal to a tall apartment building on Windsor’s east side. We park in one of three visitor spaces below the building. It’s late, about midnight, but most of the building’s windows are lit up. A lot of nighthawks, doing late-night things. Catching the late shows. Writing the next great novel. Binge-watching Netflix. Feeding babies. Staring at phones.
Mia taps a contact on her phone, watches it dial. “Moment of truth.”
“She doesn’t know we’re coming?” I ask.
Mia shakes her head and listens to the phone ringing on the other end of the line. On the way down from Hamilton, she told us about Noor, her wrestling friend who lives here. I assumed it had been all arranged. Another complication. More people involved. This whole trip becoming way, way more complicated than I anticipated. I closed my
eyes when I saw the first city-limits sign from the highway, thinking I could avoid seeing the name Windsor. But it’s everywhere. Gas stations. Corner stores. Faceless industrial buildings. Schools.
No one’s answering. Mia frowns and ends the call. “I didn’t want to take the chance that she’d tell someone we’re coming. We’re friends, but not good friends.”
“Risky.”
“Life is risk, Mr. Sims,” she says, smiling.
“You both are behaving very strangely,” Gal says.
His tone is deadpan. Hard to know whether he’s trying to participate in the humour or genuinely perplexed. And no way to confirm either way, as he’s not saying anything more to help.
Mia tries the call again. Another wait. No luck. “Now what?”
“Hotel?” I ask.
“Perhaps it would be best if a solitary middle-aged man did not attempt to check in to a hotel with two minors.”
“Right,” Mia laughs. “Good thinking.”
“The hospital?” I ask. “I’m sure we could find a waiting area.”
“Mmm … hospital chairs,” Mia says, drawing out the words like they’re the world’s best chocolate.
“Hey, come on,” I say, feeling chastised. “I’m just trying to —”
Mia’s phone lights up and buzzes, cutting me off, bright and loud in the confines of the car. A photo of a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman comes up on the screen. NOOR in big block letters. Mia smiles and taps the green emerald to accept the call. There is a quick exchange in Arabic and some laughter.
I glance at Gal. “Mia’s friend must have asked if she should put on some clothing,” he says, looking embarrassed. “Mia has told her that you and I are here, so yes, she should.”
Now I’m embarrassed too. “Oh. Okay.”
Mia ends the call and slaps Gal lightly on the shoulder. “She’s putting on a housecoat over her pyjamas. She wasn’t naked or anything. Let’s go.”
Gal winces and mutters something I don’t understand under his breath as he gets out. She steps out, too. Their doors close with a metallic clunk, leaving me alone. They walk to the front of the car, talking. The parking-lot lights are bright enough to outline them in an amber glow. Like halos. I think about my earlier thought, about how the complications are becoming harder and harder to control, and I want to take it back. I’m glad they’re here, these two odd people who have determined I’m worthy of their time and efforts. Unexpected angels, for sure. Even in their impatience, as they bend to look at me in the car and make hurry-up gestures, wondering why I haven’t come out.
COOLING GLASS
“Done,” Mia says, sliding the balcony door closed and joining me at the railing. “But wow, does it feel weird leaving my phone out there, hidden or not.”
She went down to stash her phone in a park across the street from the apartment complex. Aunt Viv’s idea. Just in case Mia’s parents contacted the police, who’d track her phone before doing anything else. I offered to accompany Mia down, but she said no. Insisted, in fact. Telling me I needed plausible deniability, like we were sneaking state secrets out of the White House itself.
“Did you see anyone?” I ask.
“No. Still felt like there were a thousand eyes on me, though. Gal’s out?”
“On the couch. Snoring about five seconds after he turned off the light.”
Mia laughs. “Must be the weed cookies. Too tired to smoke, maybe.”
“He did drive the whole way.”
“He’s good people.”
“Quite the little crew we make. Noor, too.”
“Our very own miniature UN.”
“I’m not sure she got the memo that you two aren’t close friends.”
Mia smiles. “Sometimes my skin is thicker than it needs to be. There aren’t too many Muslim girls in our sport.”
Noor and Mia could be sisters, they’re so similar. They look like they were cut from the same tree, raised from the same seed. The hardest wood. Grown for putting strong people down.
“Who’s better, you or her?”
“She is, big time. Same weight class, but older. Smarter. Kicks my ass all over the mat every single time.”
“Nice of her to let us stay.”
“I actually laughed at her when she offered: ‘If you’re ever in Windsor …’ I feel bad about that now.”
“Does she have family?”
“In Toronto. She left them to come out here. College wrestling, full scholarship. She’s that good.”
You’re that good, I almost say. But don’t. Saving myself from a further layer of something embarrassing.
We lean on the railing and fall into a comfortable silence. Suburban Windsor lies before us, a spread of low buildings, yellowish street lamps, stoplights, and business signs. We’re only eight floors up, but from here we can look out across the uniform roofs of a dozen master-planned communities and feel like we’re in a skyscraper. Jesse and I climbed higher hills together, but this is the first time I’ve been in a building with more than a few floors. It’s dizzying, being so high.
My house is out there. Our house. The home Mom and Jesse and I made. I can’t see it in the street-lit darkness, but it’s just south-southwest from where I stand, about five minutes away. And the school is another five minutes beyond that. I could find my way to both places with my eyes closed, but I won’t go back. Ever. From the porch of our Windsor home, you can see the front doors of the houses where three dead kids used to laugh and yell at their parents. None of the wounded were from our street. Just the dead. I’m glad we arrived at night.
“Did you power off?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“Your phone. Down there.”
Aunt Viv told us that powering off would make it even harder for the police to triangulate. “And make sure you stash it somewhere other than where you’re staying,” she said.
“Oh. Right. That’s an affirmative, Agent Sims.”
“Mia …”
“Right. No real names. You can be Agent Smith. Like in —”
“The Matrix.”
“You know it? It’s kind of old school.”
“Yep.”
“I like that you know it.”
I blush. And blush more when I realize it. And even more when I realize there’s just enough light reflected onto our faces from the city below that Mia can see me. She giggles and kisses me on the cheek. Which of course, makes my face bloom even more.
She goes into a two-sided recitation of some of the lines from the movie, asking herself if she can dodge bullets and then telling herself when the time comes she won’t have to. She laughs. I don’t. I feel my blush cooling, fading to pale. Bullets in movies don’t do the things real bullets do. And there’s no supernatural dance around them. What they find, they destroy. It’s that simple.
So instead of talking, I pull out the small phone Aunt Viv bought for me and power it on. I watch the screen brighten and the wireless bars dance as they search out the nearest tower. “It’s a burner,” she said. “We’re safe for texting or calling, and you can use the GPS. No email or social media, though. Those are beyond my immediate, uh, powers.” She has an identical device. Untraceable. “Can’t very well have you using my real number, can I?”
The phone chimes as it connects. Text from Aunt Viv.
— Let me know when you arrive
I tap out a quick response.
— windsor
She responds in precisely fifteen milliseconds.
— Good. All clear here too
— sean?
— Clueless. The perfect crime
A smile at her choice of words sneaks onto my face.
— i bet
— ;) You ok?
— i think so
— …
— well maybe a bit nervous
— Ok. (I would be, too.) G’nite
There’s no reason to text more. Aunt Viv does not do extended goodbyes. Hates them, in fact. She railed about it just the other day afte
r running an errand. Acted it out.
“They stand there right in the store, gushing over each other’s farewells like they mean something. Like they’re not going to see each other two minutes later in the car. ‘No, you say goodbye.’ ‘No, you.’ (Insert awkward, pregnant pause by both parties.) ‘I was waiting for you!’ ‘And I was waiting for you!’ (Insert giggles.) ‘Okay, now really, you say goodbye.’ ‘No, you!’ And so on. People are pathetic.”
I slip the phone into my pocket.
Mia is watching. “You got so quiet before Viv’s text arrived. Did I say something wrong?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I messed up somehow.”
“It was just your words. Normal words. I’m just unprepared for them sometimes.”
Her eyes get wide. “It was The Matrix scene, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I shrug. “You couldn’t know.”
“Does it happen often? Where you get sad, I mean?”
“It’s not sadness!”
I say it too quickly. Too sharply. And I can see it on her face. When you speak like that, it stretches out before it’s ready and becomes brittle. Like molten glass cooling into shape too quickly. It’ll break if you don’t ease some warmth back into it.
“No, wait,” I say. “I am sad, of course, for everything we lost, but what hits me is more of a darkness. A shutting down, if that makes sense. And yeah, it happens often enough. You saw it the other day.”
“Have you talked to anyone about it?”
“Not since leaving here. The school board had counsellors everywhere. For a little while, anyway.”
“How was that?”
I pause, considering. You get this sense that there are all these people who want to help, but in the end, they weren’t there. They haven’t lived what you’ve lived. They haven’t seen death like you’ve seen it. Counsellors all over the place for a few days. Daily sessions in offices far removed from the school. Then dwindling to once a week. Too big to imagine, much less fix. No one gets that. Every survivor will stay broken forever.
Nothing but Life Page 14
