Trigger

by Susan Vaught

  Mom’s shocked gasp made me slam the book and sit straight up.

  My head hurt so sharply I thought it would explode.

  She was standing in my doorway like an ice statue, pale white, both hands against the side of her head. Sand and socks. Socks and sand.

  “Mom?” I felt dizzy, and I really wanted to throw up. What was wrong with her?

  Slowly, she seemed to come back to herself and thaw a little. The hands came down. “I—I—,” she started, but she didn’t finish. Her lowered hands shook as she twitched her head from side to side once. “Nothing. Sorry I disturbed you. Do you want the light on?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got a headache right now. Sand.”

  “Okay.” And she was gone. Poof. The wind blew her away. The sand wind melted the ice. Socks on the sand wind.

  Frowning, I eased myself back down to my pillow. Numbers. Mom was good at numbers. Numbers—the list. I had been trying to remember the list without looking. Making plans for crossing off numbers. I had been trying to get started. Lucky proud king ducks in the sand. At least I didn’t hear the ghost-voice. J.B. had gone to sleep or died or whatever. Maybe the headache killed him before he could kill me.

  My eyelids closed against the pound-pound-pound of my scars, my teeth, my eyeballs. My good arm draped across my stomach. Getting started with my list should be easy enough. I’d use what I learned at Carter. Eyeballs. Envision, then implement. Up and forward. Imagine what I would do, then do it.

  Eyeballs. Sand and socks.

  I was mentally chanting about the sand eyeballs and socks, mentally heading back down the steps and next door to see Mama Rush, when I fell hard, hard, hard asleep.

  chapter 3

  I have this dream where both legs work and both arms work and I don’t have any scars on the outside. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed in dress blues holding a pistol. Sunlight brightens the dust and sand in my room and darkens all the places where I’ve nicked the walls and doors. The football rug, the one Mama Rush gave me when I made the team my freshman year, is folded neatly on my dresser so it won’t get messy. I give it one last look before I turn back to what I’m doing. My fingers tingle as I lift the gun to my mouth. It tastes oily and dusty all at once as I close my lips on cold gunmetal—but I can’t. Not in the mouth. I’m shaking, but I lift the barrel to the side of my head. The tip digs into my skin. I’m thinking nothing but how that feels, and that my hand’s shaking, and that my room has so much dust and sand in places I didn’t even know. Then I’m squeezing the trigger and looking at the dust and sand and feeling my hand shake and thinking nothing and there’s noise and fire and pain and I’m falling, falling, my broken head smashing into my pillow ….

  Dad made oatmeal for breakfast, which struck me weird because Dad was a cold cereal sort of guy, or at least he had been Before.

  “Everything changes,” he said when I asked, then talked about reading articles on nutrition and how nutrition really helps people not be depressed and stuff. Dad was worried I’d get depressed now that I was out of the hospital, because of pressure. Too much pressure. Depressed. Dad reading articles. That was another weird thing, because Dad usually read articles in his law enforcement journals to help him out at work, not articles about food. A probation officer, my dad. Cold cereal, long hours, lots of worrying about all his “other kids.” Now he was staying home to look after me, I supposed. He offered to take me to the movies. Everything changes.

  Mom, who used to get up before dawn, run a bunch of miles, and keep her blond hair tight and pulled back and her clothes perfect even on the weekend, she was still in bed.

  “So, about the movies?” Dad’s über-smile filled up his face.

  “No, thanks.” I looked away. My parents. I had no idea what to do with them now. “I have this list from Carter I need to start working through—and it’s stuff I kinda need to do for myself, for independence and up and forward and all. Everything changes. Carter. Stuff.”

  When I looked back at Dad, his expression had changed to one that might have been disappointment, then he found one of those weird smiles again and wandered off to his study to make phone calls.

  My parents.

  Everything changes. Except Mama Rush. She always told me she was way too old to change, and at the moment, I was glad. Dressed in jeans and a short-sleeve shirt she had sent to me while I was in Carter, I picked up my memory book and the plastic bag of presents, and I headed out the front door without looking at the pictures of J.B. I made sure to check back with my good eye, but I didn’t see any ghosts following me out of the house, and I figured I was safe the minute the front door closed.

  It was warm outside. The sunlight made me blink really fast, and it hurt in my blind eye. At Carter, they told me to wear a patch or sunglasses, but I thought that looked stupid, so I just dealt with it. I didn’t wear my hand brace either, or the foot brace. Too uncomfortable. I was supposed to sleep in those stupid things so my foot wouldn’t turn in and my hand wouldn’t curl up. No way. They sent the braces home with me, but when I unpacked this morning, I put them in the closet.

  The oatmeal—one ounce of butter, no sugar—churned in my stomach as I tried to forget Dad’s strangeness and the dream I’d had. The folded rug. The stupid folded rug.

  I covered my right eye with my memory book. The sun felt hot on my fingers even though the breeze was cool. Rug. Fall was coming. Fall and school and my life and I had a To-Do List, and Mama Rush was first, and she was too old to change. Rug.

  Todd’s house seemed a lot farther from my front door than I remembered, but I made the hike without even losing my breath even though I was carrying a plastic bag that had to weigh ten pounds. Bad boy going to hell down the front steps, then good boy going to heaven as I climbed up to Todd’s porch.

  Reality check: Todd would probably slam the door in my face if he answered.

  Rug.

  I needed to be ready for that, but I didn’t feel ready at all. I felt scared and clumsy and ugly, and like I was eight years old again, running over the day after he moved in to see if he wanted to come out to play.

  Rug.

  For a few seconds, I chewed on my lip. My teeth punched hard on the right side, but I couldn’t really feel them on the left. The doorbell was right there in front of me, but I didn’t want to push it. That oatmeal—I should have stopped after a bite or two. Rug.

  BELL’S FINE MORON START RINGING.

  “Bell’s fine.” I lifted my chin like my speech therapist taught me to do.

  Pragmatics, Hatch. You can recite the whole Bible and nobody will hear a word if you don’t raise your head.

  Back to pragmatics. This time the nonverbal aspects of speech. I had tons of words, but my social skills sucked. That’s what the therapist meant, that five-year-old genius problem again. That’s what a bullet in the head did for you, assuming it left any words at all.

  Bell’s fine, moron.

  I pushed it.

  From the other side of the door came long, slow chimes I remembered. I closed my eyes and listened. Couldn’t help smiling. Not everything changed. Not everything.

  The door opened.

  A beautiful girl dressed in blue warm-ups was standing a foot from me.

  Her black eyes went wide and her mouth opened, revealing perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. She had her hair on top of her head in a knot like Mama Rush wore, but pretty ringlets hung down on either side. Never mind any of that, though. She was built. Like, way, way, built.

  Had the Rush family moved away?

  “Who are you?” I blurted, clutching the memory book to my chest. The present bag felt heavy in my hand. Sometimes I forgot I was a guy since so much of me didn’t work—but at that moment, I knew for sure I was a guy. Broken in a few places. Scarred in lots of places. But yeah, a guy.

  The knockout girl looked back over her shoulder, like somebody might catch her talking to me.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Jersey. My parents will throw a fit.”
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br />   Then I knew her.

  “Leza?” I shook my head. “No way. You’re—I mean—middle school, all short, with braids and braces, and—”

  “I’m a sophomore now. You’ve been … um, gone for a while.” Leza sure sounded older, and more like Todd than I remembered. That made me sad all of a sudden, sad enough to feel tears in my eyes. Crying in public in front of pretty girls. Pragmatics, Hatch. Thanks a lot, bullet. Why did I have to be a guy, anyway?

  “I don’t want to bother anybody.” My words tried to jumble up, but I slowed myself down, relaxed, and squeaked out the next sentence. “I want to talk to Mama Rush.”

  Leza’s mouth twisted like she might be chewing the inside of her cheek. She let out a breath, glanced over her shoulder again, and whispered, “Didn’t you know she moved? It’s been about a year, over to The Palace. That place in all the ads, you know?”

  I did know. I had seen the ads everywhere.

  “Mama Rush is in a place for old people?” I scratched my half-moon scar. “That can’t—I mean, why did she go there?”

  The sparkle left Leza’s eyes. Her long, dark fingers tightened against the yellow door. “Lots of people changed after what you did.” Another glance over her shoulder. “You should go now.”

  I started to ask her what she meant when somebody pulled her out of the way. It was Todd. Just like that, he was standing in front of me.

  He seemed … taller. And his hair was buzzed against his head, making his ears look taller, too. His skin, which had been dusky, looked smooth as black marble. He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, both black, and he was all muscle, like he’d been in a gym every day for two years.

  “Hi,” I said. Talk to Todd and find out why he hates me. My chance. Here it was. “I came to—”

  Todd’s eyes blazed. “Get away from my sister, you freak.”

  “Todd, I want—”

  “Man, I don’t care what you want!” He looked like he wanted to shove me, even jumped forward like he was going to. At the last second, he pulled up and brought his fists down hard, knocking the memory book and Mama Rush’s presents out of my hands.

  The snap-crunch of pottery breaking made my stomach roll. At the same time, the book flipped open. Pages tore out and blew off the porch. Four or five at least. A chunk of my days and hours, tumbling across grass, heading for the road.

  Todd hesitated, fists still balled and raised. His gaze flicked from me to the dancing memory book pages. For a second, he looked uncertain, maybe even sorry. Then he backed into his house, frowning. “If you come back over here, I’ll mess you up.”

  Before I could say anything else, he slammed the door and left me standing on the wide front porch all alone. I didn’t move even though I was scared of him. I had no idea what to do next.

  Freak. Yeah, well. Freak. I was a freak. And I knew he’d mess me up if he wanted to.

  Todd never bluffed, at least the Todd I knew Before. Freak.

  I glanced down at Mama Rush’s gift bag. Lots of stuff in it probably broke. Tears trickled out of my eyes. Freak. Lots of it was stupid junk, anyway. What would she want with pottery flowerpots and ceramic trivets at a place like The Palace? The Palace in all the ads, with the old people smiling and riding around on mobility scooters and taking buses to get ice cream.

  My bad leg dragged as I edged over to the bag. It took me a long time, but I finally got in the right position, did my balance check, and carefully bent down to snag it with my right hand. It still weighed the same—almost pulled me over as I straightened back up. The freak trying to stand tall. Pragmatics, Hatch. Freak.

  Pragmatics. Nonverbal aspects of speech. Todd said a lot with how he looked, with what he did. Freak. Nonverbal and verbal, too, really. Did I have snot on my face? I probably had snot. After I wrapped the gift bag around my bad wrist so nobody could knock it out of my hands again, I wiped my face with my shirttail. No snot I could see at least.

  The memory book was trickier because I couldn’t snag it like the bag handles. If I got down on my knees, I might not be able to get back up, so I kept trying. Up and forward. The nonverbal aspects of speech. Pragmatics. The pragmatics of notebook retrieval. Hatch, Jersey. Memory book. Pages of my life blowing across Todd’s yard, blowing down the street in the neighborhood with all the baseball field grass. All the way to the Sahara with sand and more sand and fine doorbells I should get to ringing. Freak.

  Tears dribbled down my chin. I was probably making snot. I stood up, wiped my face again. Checked my balance. Bent down for the notebook. My back hurt. So did my neck. I felt like I was hauling my left side around like some big, heavy backpack—and it was trying to make me fall. I grabbed at the top cover and got it, started up with the book. More pages tore out. My tears plopped on the paper, smearing words, but I got it up. I finally got it up. Only, it seemed like half the pages were leaving me, dancing, cartwheeling, hopping up and down like little mice on sand in a big green desert.

  Banging Mama Rush’s already crunchy present bag, I bad-boy-to-helled off Todd’s porch and started after the first page. At least my eyes were drying up. Maybe I had snot on my face. I stopped to wipe off my nose with my shirt, and the first page I was chasing took off.

  I sighed and dragged my weak leg across the yard. One at a time, I could do it. Up and forward, and ringing doorbells, and sand, and all. I could catch the pages. When I finally drew even with the sand-doorbell-page-from-bad-boy-hell, I stepped on it with my good foot. Balance check. Deep breath. Bend and grab. Freak.

  The page tore in half under my foot.

  “Don’t curse.” My lip throbbed from where I bit it. “Don’t curse. No swearing. Pragmatics. Sand. Ding-dong-doorbell.”

  I tried to lift my foot off the torn piece and fell to my left so fast the sky and road and grass blurred past in a flash. Mama Rush’s bag dug into my hip and side, smashing more stuff, including me maybe, I couldn’t tell. Doorbells. Doorbells.

  “Doorbells!”

  “Are you all right, Jersey?”

  The voice was soft, whispery. I managed to roll to my good side, sit up, and blink into the bright sunlight.

  Leza was standing right beside me holding a fistful of pages. She had picked them all up. She bent and retrieved the torn piece, too, and held out her free hand.

  I couldn’t get a good breath from the fall. I still had tears on my face and probably snot, too, and I was an ugly freak on top of everything else. In spite of all that, I handed her the piece I had managed to grab, then my book, too. After examining the notebook and the holes, she shook her head.

  “Can’t hook them back in.” She shuffled the loose pages around and folded them together, even the torn piece. “They’ll go in this pocket, though. I tried to put them in order.”

  Had she read anything? God, I hoped not. I probably wrote about snot and sand. I probably had snot on my face. Pragmatics. The nonverbal aspects of being an ugly freak. King Jersey of Desert Nothing at All.

  “Thanks.” My voice sounded like I’d been in a desert.

  Leza stuck out her hand again while still holding my memory book. It struck me weird, but then I remembered she had two good hands, not just one. Face burning, I let her help me to my feet. It was easy to get up with a little help. Mama Rush’s presents felt like a bag of pulverized junk.

  “Thanks,” I said again, holding back sand-doorbell rattling. Leza didn’t want to hear about sand, I was sure. Pragmatics. Don’t curse. She’s pretty. Doorbells.

  Leza reached up with the sleeve of her blue warm-up jacket and wiped both of my cheeks. “I’m sorry Todd got so angry, and I’m sorry he tore up your book and stuff. If I were you, I’d stay away from him.”

  “Why does he hate me?” I blurted. “I mean, Before. Dad said he hated me Before.”

  She gaped at me like I was an uglier freak than usual. Doorbells. Sahara. Don’t curse. Don’t say something stupid out loud, like doorbells.

  “Doorbells,” I muttered. “Pretty doorbells. Football rugs.”


  Leza gave me a longer, stranger look. “You don’t remember? Elana Arroyo and all that?

  I shook my head.

  She studied me for a few seconds. “Well, that was you and him. I wasn’t there. I just heard about it.”

  “What? Heard doorbells? I mean, heard what? Why? Why did we fight?”

  More studying me. She bit at one of her nails. “That was a long time ago. And like I said, it was him over that girl. That’s all I really know. Now—well, I think he can’t stand what you did. Kind of like my parents.”

  I looked at the ground. It was easier than looking at Leza. “Doorbells.”

  “You can’t help that, can you? Saying stuff.”

  “No. Well, a little, but not all the time.”

  “And you can’t help turning your head funny, to the side so you can see better.” She picked at her palm like she might have a callus. “I read about that in a pamphlet Mama Rush brought home from one of your hospitals. It’s because your brain is broken, right?”

  “I’m a five-year-old genius,” I offered.

  “Okay, yeah.” Leza actually smiled. “I’ve got to get to the track, and you need to go home before Todd comes back outside. Mom and Dad are down in the basement getting ready to go to Lake Raven, so—”

  “I’m gone. Thanks for helping me.”

  “Welcome.” Leza turned and jogged toward her house.

  I wondered if I had snot on my face.

  chapter 4

  My father overreacted when I got home from my Saturday morning in Todd’s front yard, all because my book was torn up, and my bag had grass on it, and I told him I fell. He dragged Mom out of bed and hauled us to the emergency room to have my bad hip checked out, and my ribs and arm and leg and whatever else he could think of asking them to examine. Fell. I just fell. Fell down.

  Mom didn’t say much, ate a pack of peanuts for breakfast, and somewhere between the fourth X-ray and the orthopedic consultation, she left for the bank “to catch up on some work while nobody could interrupt.” I fell down. I just fell down. But Dad had to have X-rays, and Mom left.