Lost Cause

by Callie Sparks

  I just stare at him for a long time. “Are you trying to shock me?”

  “No. I’m trying to tell you who I am now. I can’t change it. I can’t pretend. I’ll always be fucked up when it comes to that.” He breathes in, then exhales slowly, and for the first time since he climbed into my car, he looks at me. The bruise on his eye is bad; it occurs to me he needs ice, but then he says something that makes everything I’m thinking go out the window. “First time I ever saw you,” he says, his voice pained. “You were like a little mosquito-bite covered angel in coke-bottle glasses, coming out of nowhere on that pink bicycle of yours. Remember?”

  I realize he’s looking out at the driveway, where we first met. Of course I remember that. “We went tubing.”

  “Yeah.” He looks out toward the river. “I fell so fucking hard that day. I knew my life would never be the same. ”

  Tears prick my eyes, and my mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

  He inhales. “I came back here thinking . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe that I needed an angel. I thought, maybe you’d see something other than that stupid, tongue-tied little dork who used to get stars in his eyes every time he looked your way. But I have changed, and not in any good way. I’m always going to disgust people, now. We can’t go back, Ari. And going forward—like this—I’d only ruin you. ”

  “Noah, I—“

  “Don’t, Ari,” he says. “Don’t even try to say I wouldn’t.”

  “But it’s not your fault.”

  He snorts. “It is. What did you say before? No. My stepmother didn’t tie me up. She didn’t drug me. You’re right. I wanted it. I went on my own. Sometimes I even liked it. I deserve everything bad that happens to me now. What can I say? You . . . and your brilliant dad . . . were right.”

  He throws open the door, jumps out, and disappears through the brush before I can even open my mouth to tell him to stop.

  #

  The talk about Noah continued through Christmas break, though it waned as the months wore on. His desk in class remained empty, a constant reminder to me of his absence. But I had reminders everywhere—while I waited alone for the bus, looked outside my window to see his closed one, dark and shade drawn, whenever I went into the treehouse and read the messages we’d carefully written into the walls. They were fading, so I brought out a sharpie and traced over the words, trying to make them permanent.

  I looked out the window almost obsessively, waiting for that shade to be drawn up.

  Then, one day, right after Christmas, a police car showed up in the Templeton’s driveway. I dared to hope. But dread pooled in my stomach when they led Mr. Templeton out to the back of the police car. His head was down. He was not rejoicing in the news that they’d found his son.

  Hopes dashed, for the first time, I climbed into bed and allowed myself to cry over Noah Templeton.

  It wouldn’t be the last time.

  I learned little bits of information after that. While investigating his son’s disappearance, they’d learned that Mr. Templeton hadn’t been quite honest with his employer. Something about stealing money from customer accounts. All manpower that had once been devoted to finding Noah was now centered on Mr. Templeton’s transgressions.

  I wanted to scream at them. Who cared if Mr. Templeton stole a little money? Noah was out there, and he was only thirteen. He was lost. He needed someone to find him and bring him back. I thought of how I’d feel if I’d been ripped from my home. I’d want someone to find me. It was depressing that everyone could just forget, wipe away any memory of a person, after little more than four months.

  So I made it my business not to forget.

  I went out to the treehouse, even on cold, snowy days. When I struggled with my Geometry, I imagined Noah was there, hovering over me, asking me gentle questions to pry the right answer out of me. He’d given me presents over the years—a Darth Vader bobble head, a charm bracelet, a gumball machine. I kept them all under my bed and brought them out, gazing at them as if they’d solve the mystery of his disappearance.

  I realized I didn’t have a single recent picture of him. He wasn’t on social media—his stepmom forbade that. I had a thousand selfies on my phone, pictures of me and Claire and Jacy and Mari, going about our daily lives—but not one picture of Noah. His parents hadn’t been keen on photographs, either, I guessed, because while my parents were constantly snapping photos of me, the only picture of Noah was the one that had appeared in the papers. It was a school picture. He was probably eleven in it, with that weird half-mohawk cut, crooked, uncomfortable smile, and big brown eyes that took up his entire face.

  When I returned to school after Christmas break, there was a new student—an exchange student from Sweden named Hildi Andersen. She was blonde and had lips redder than strawberries and immediately everyone wanted to know her. Especially Gabe. Whatever Clare had said about him wanting to know me had been true—he’d always stop and talk whenever he saw me, and on a field trip to see the Nutcracker that December, he’d sat next to me on the bus and held my hand. After that, I expected he’d ask me out any day.

  But when Hildi showed up that January, he all but ignored me.

  I told myself it was good—he made me far too nervous. And really, I was only thirteen, and my parents didn’t want me having a boyfriend until I was at least sixteen.

  Still, it was infuriating to see how quickly he fell for Hildi, when things with us had seemed to crawl at a snail’s pace. The first day, Gabe made a space at our lunch table and sat her next to him. They were caught holding hands in study hall. By Valentine’s Day, everyone called them a couple. But she made it hard to be jealous—she was just so sweet.

  Not everyone loved Hildi, though. Claire was intensely jealous at how popular she was and always seemed to be engaged in a secret competition with her to see who had more admirers. Claire remarked to me, on Valentine’s Day, “It’s that cute little accent of hers. It’s different. Guys go for the exotic. She’ll be back in Finland or wherever she came from this summer, and then it’ll be business as usual.”

  I nodded, and ended up spending a lot more time in front of the mirror. I was different, but obviously not in a good, Hildi way. I was still flat-chested, still hadn’t gotten my period. My mother, who used to say, “Don’t worry, it’ll happen when it happens!” had even begun to feel sorry for me, because she’d started buying me padded bras without me having to beg for them. I started taking daily showers, leaving my hair down more and wearing lip gloss.

  Not that it did any good. That spring, I was nearly invisible, which only made me miss Noah more.

  He’d see me. He always saw me.

  I couldn’t help thinking about the times I’d distanced myself from Noah or laughed along with everyone else as they made fun of his wardrobe or his clumsiness or the funny, lilting way he walked. I hoped that maybe, wherever he was, the people weren’t as cruel to him as we’d been.

  But the one time Gabe did say something to me, it turned everything on end.

  It was lunchtime. I’d just heard a rumor that Gabe got caught making out with Hildi behind the bleachers in the gymnasium, so I was surprised when he sat down right next to me. “So what’s the deal with Templeton’s dad?” he asked me.

  I shrugged. No one had mentioned Noah’s name in months. “He’s in jail,” I stuttered, wondering how I could still be nervous, knowing how he’d dropped me like a hot potato for Hildi. I should’ve hated him. “I think he stole from his employer or something.”

  He grinned. “You think that’s all?”

  I looked at him, but had to avert my eyes because his perfection was in danger of melting me. I took a hold of my milk carton and brought the straw to my lips. “What else is there?”

  “I hear,” he said, leaning in really close, “That they’re investigating him in relation to the disappearance of his family.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not true. He stole . . .”

  He leaned back precariously on the chair.
“It’s true all right. They’ve been questioning him day and night. I saw it on the news. They’re hoping he’ll crack and admit where he buried the bodies.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  But Peony died shortly after that.

  Yeah. Unrelated. Complications from the flu, they said, which pretty much laid all of us down. They weren’t really into medications and vaccines and shit there.

  What happened the night of January 3rd of this year?

  Guy pulled into the gas station, on his way up from the border. I knew he was a fed; he had his badge in the cup holder of his Jeep. He paid for his gas and I told him that if he came out back with me, I’d give him head for a twenty.

  Is that something you did often?

  Only after I’d made up my mind to leave. I needed all the money I could get. He looked at me for a minute and then he called me kid and asked why I’d want to do that shit. He was almost like, disappointed in me. I told him I needed to get away. And then he gave me a hundred dollars. He told me I didn’t belong out there. He told me to take care and then he started to pull away. Got nearly out of sight and suddenly spun around and came back. He jumped out of his car and started looking at me, really looking at me.

  He recognized you?

  He’d been in college at Rutgers when the whole thing happened, before he got into the Border Patrol. He asked me my name and when I told him it was Noah, he said everyone had been looking for me.

  And what did you say?

  I told him he had the wrong guy. I thought he must’ve been thinking of someone else, because I doubted anyone cared about me.

  #

  I know he’s been taking women home.

  It’s been four days since the fiasco in Lambertville. He managed to get his truck fixed, and has been busily going about his life, all without even casting a single glance to my window. I know this because I’ve spent way too much time than is healthy, in my bedroom, peeking out at his comings and goings.

  A lot of time, he’s out there, smoking cigarette after cigarette on the back deck. In the light I will see him leaning over the railing, looking out into the woods. In the early mornings, before the sun comes up, I see the orange glow of his cigarette bobbing between the trees.

  I don’t think he sleeps. He goes out every night, and usually staggers home in the early hours of the morning. One night, he brought a girl. I watched as he fumbled with his keys while the girl sucked on his neck and rubbed his crotch through his jeans. I watched them make out under the porch light, laughing too loud, drunk. It was almost like he wanted me to see. I threw the curtains closed after that, not wanting to even think of them making love in his bedroom, where I’d used to hang out with him while he worked on his train models —until I remembered he’d taken up in the master bedroom.

  Plus, the way they were going at it, they probably didn’t even make it to the bedroom. They probably just screwed on the welcome mat.

  I don’t know how to feel about that. I should hate him, but instead, I’m sad. Worried, is more like it. This isn’t the type of healing my dad was talking about.

  That afternoon after my shift at the Toad, I’m reading in my bedroom when my mom calls to me. Something about an errand she needs me to do. I’m thinking something innocuous like laundry or cleaning the bathroom, when I see all the aluminum-wrapped Chinet plates on the table.

  My stomach drops.

  “Bring these over to Noah’s, would you?” she says to me, her hands buried to the elbow in rubber gloves as she scrubs the lasagna pan in the sink.

  “Uh.” I wish she had a bathroom for me to clean. “Mom, why? He doesn’t need all this. He’s perfectly capable of—”

  “Did you see all those fast food cartons in the garbage? That’s no way to eat. He hasn’t wanted to impose by coming over for dinner. I’ve asked him the past three days.”

  “You have?”

  She nods absently. “Poor boy’s getting a pooch in his stomach from greasy foods. This is enough for fourteen meals. Tell him they go in the freezer, pop them in the micro for three minutes.”

  I groan. The pooch is probably more from drinking beer, and the only eating that’s at the top of Noah’s priority list right now is pussy. I cringe at the mental image, embarrassed that I’ve thought about that magical tongue of his, those gifted fingers, again and again for the past few days. After that afternoon by the river, something inside me has changed. Now, all these feelings are warring inside me, worse than ever before.

  I hate this person he’s becoming. After everything he said about not wanting to lose me, he’s just throwing me away. He had to go and open up this whole new world to me, then quickly slam the door in my face.

  And I have no idea how to act when I see him again. Which I’d already planned... I never want to do.

  Well, not if he’s going to be an asshole to me. If he’s the Noah I know, the real Noah, I’d take him back in a second.

  I’m sure he knows that, the way he knows everything about me.

  Stomach twisting, I scoop the tray of plates into my arms and push open the front screen door with my backside. Then I carefully navigate through the line of woods between our houses. His truck is there, but it’s afternoon. So he’s likely there. Alone. I hope.

  When I get to the porch, I realize the door is open a crack. I knock, but no one answers. I push open the door and call out to him half-heartedly. When no one answers, I open the freezer door and shove the tray in. Even though the freezer is empty except for an ice tray, it doesn’t all fit, so I have to move some of it to the fridge. The fridge is well-stocked with beer, but nothing else. It’s obvious he thinks that’s the only food group these days.

  There’s a pile of mail on the table. Most of it is unopened. The one on the top is from a university I’ve never heard of. I look closer. It’s unopened. Then I notice that there are more, all on official looking-paper. I sift through the pile, until I find an open one with a very familiar crest. St. Bonaventure. I study it for a moment and then peek inside. We are pleased to offer you a full scholarship . . .

  My throat tightens as I look at the date. It’s from a week ago.

  I hear a faint noise, labored breathing. I turn. The door to the cellar is open.

  I want to just leave, but I know my mom will be pissed if I don’t tell him about the food and the heating instructions, so replacing the envelope in the stack, I climb down the stairs.

  The basement is huge and mostly empty; we used to ride bikes down here sometimes when it rained. It just has a washer and dryer, a few plastic tubs of storage, and Noah’s workout bench. Plus, there are markings all over the walls and wooden boards everywhere, remnants of some big model railroad project that Noah and his dad had planned, so many years ago, before everything fell apart.

  Noah is face-up on the bench, lifting weights. He’s shirtless again, breathing hard as he lifts the barbell over his chest. His muscles glisten with sweat and the veins pop from his body—my God, I knew he was solid, but I didn’t know he was this hard. My mother obviously has no idea what she’s talking about—there’s no pooch in sight. One blue vein in particular stretches down his six-pack, pointing the way right down to this small patch of brown hair, which disappears under his black boxer briefs.

  I’m glad he doesn’t notice me right away, because I have time to adjust my mouth, which is hanging open. When he does, he pops earbuds out of his ears and sits up. He’s wearing a backwards Phillies cap and he doesn’t say hi, just looks at me.

  I can’t say anything. I think my ovaries are exploding.

  Finally I manage an unintelligible noise. “What I mean is, uh . . . your mom. I mean, my mom. She brought you food.” I know there’s something else I’m supposed to tell him, cooking directions I think, but right now I’m pretty sure he could heat anything up himself, just by looking at it.

  He nods casually and reaches for a towel. He starts to swab off his chest and back, and I’m thinking there’s no woman on earth that wouldn’t want to be th
at towel. “Tell her thanks.”

  I stand stupidly on the bottom step. This is where I leave. But my feet are encased in cement.

  He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and starts fumbling with his rope bracelets. “What are you up to?”

  Other than the exploding ovaries, “Nothing much.”

  Idiotically, I got my hopes up that that’s the beginning of an invitation, but I guess not, because he just nods and leans back, adjusting his gloves and getting in position to lift some more. “Spot?”

  I stand there, confused.

  “Spot me?” he repeats. “The third set is always a killer.”

  I get the drift and scurry behind his head. He has a lot of weight on there; I doubt I can be much help. Despite the “killer” nature of this third set, I watch as his arms move effortlessly up and down, every muscle of his chest straining. He looks so in his element that I find myself backing up, against the wall. He doesn’t need help at all—when he’s done he lifts the barbell into the bracket with hardly any struggle.

  Then he sits up and swings around. He’s studying me so curiously, I hug myself. “What?”

  He shakes his head. “Over there is where they found him.”

  He says it so casually, it takes me a moment to realize. His father killed himself down here. When I do, I want to throw up. “Oh, my God.” I cover my mouth with my hand and rush toward the stairs.

  But there’s a girl standing there, blocking my way. She’s wearing his t-shirt, which is much too big for her, everywhere but in the chest region. Long blonde hair, kind of bed-tussled, and a sly smile. “Oh, I thought I heard people down here,” she says, yawning like she just woke up, even though it’s afternoon. She smiles at me. “Hi.”

  Now I really want to throw up. I try to move past her. “I was just leaving.”

  Noah’s wiping his chest with the towel again. He takes it upon himself to make introductions, as if I want to be introduced to her. “Ari, this is Candace. Candace, Ari. Ari lives next door. Candace is a . . .” He pauses, thinking. “Chemist?”