I went to grab the next one in the stack, but it skidded beneath the bed. I flipped up the bed skirt and aimed my flashlight into the darkness: The notebook rested against an old shoe box that was about as far beneath Ellie’s bed as you could get. It took a few tries, but finally with the tips of my fingers I was able to pull it out. The shoe box—somehow caught on the slightly bent edge of the spiral—came with it. I unlatched the two and then, mostly out of curiosity, slid the lid off the box.
“Black Hawk, car lights approaching the end of the block. Over.”
Paper. Dozens of strips of paper torn haphazardly from a variety of sources, each with a cryptic message addressed to no one specific.
“Did you hear me, over?”
I rifled through the box, hands shaking. Was everything I wanted to know about Ellie here for the taking?
“The car is parking now. Are you effing deaf? Over.”
I debated stealing the box and spending the entire night in the basement, reading each strip, trying to figure out its meaning.
“Getting out of the car. What the fuck are you doing?”
But if I stole the thing she held most private, would she ever forgive me?
“Jessie? Are you sh-shitting me? Are you n-nuts?” Lola was stuttering now. “They’re a-at the door!”
I shoved the box under the bed and arranged the sketch pads—except for the one with this year’s date—in a neat stack. That one I tossed into my bag, telling myself that I would find a way to return it in the morning, before Ellie noticed, and that it wasn’t the same thing as taking her box. It was more like the scarf. It was only drawings, after all. But I knew I was lying to myself.
I raised Ellie’s bedroom window just as the front door squeaked ajar. A woman’s shaky voice said, “Well, we can just catch an early flight tomorrow. It’s not a big deal, Gary. We should have just never stopped at the bar, okay? Can we just drop it now, okay?”
“Fine. I was just saying—” a deeper voice responded.
“I heard you the first, second, fourth, fifth—”
“Fine, consider it dropped,” he snapped. They were silent then. I worked quietly at removing Ellie’s screen—the latch on the left was rusted shut—while monitoring their noises. Luggage was dragged in, lamps turned on, and water run in the kitchen.
“Did you hear that?” Mr. Sargeant’s voice cut the silence.
I froze, the pounding in my heart rising into my neck.
“Hear what?”
“Exactly. Where’s Ellie? I thought she was grounded.”
“She’s sleeping over Sarah’s house. Don’t you remember I told you? I’m sure I told you.” Mrs. Sargeant’s voice grew louder, coming to a halt right outside the door.
“She’s never going to learn if you keep letting her out of her groundings,” Mr. Sargeant said.
“I told you, we settled it. Why won’t you let this go?”
“Because I don’t believe her. And I’m tired of you taking her word over mine. If you honestly believe she’s respecting your rules, there should be nothing in her room that says otherwise. So let’s just end this argument by taking a look inside. . . .”
The door cracked open—the light from the hallway flooding the room—then, just as suddenly, slammed shut.
“Absolutely not! Gary, I’m not spy—”
“Spying? If you don’t start paying more attention—”
“I’m exhausted. Do we have to discuss this now?” Her voice grew distant again. There was the click of another door, and then their sounds were completely muffled.
“Psst, Jess.” I turned around. Lola stood outside Ellie’s window, screen in hand.
Thirty minutes later, she was wearing her pajamas and interrogating me. “I just don’t get it,” she said.
“I told you, unless you want to tape up a charcoal drawing of Mr. Lumpnick’s dog on everyone’s locker, there was nothing there.”
The sound of collective laughter drifted up from the living room, where my younger sisters were curled up with my parents on the couch, watching The NeverEnding Story. Just last summer I had spent most of my Friday nights right beside them, but high school had changed all that, making everything way more complicated.
“You looked underneath her bed? In her closet?”
“I’m sorry,” I replied hollowly.
“Sorry?” Lola glared at me.
“Just relax. Okay? It was a dumb plan anyway.”
“I knew I should have done it myself,” she snapped.
“Yeah? In the dark? You hate being alone in the dark.” I held her stare for a few minutes, and she looked away.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asked suspiciously.
I shrugged, knowing that we were no longer talking about the break-in, but about my increasing ability to stand up to her.
“You’re hiding something . . . aren’t you?” She moved toward my backpack, but I jumped off my bed and blocked her. She gave me her typical I’m going to tear your head off look, but I held my ground. I didn’t want her ripping through my things, tossing them and me around the way she did Mr. Big Butt Bear.
“I’m not lying.”
“Then let me look.” She took a step forward, her arms out like a running back’s. She tried to push past me, but much to her surprise and my own, I pushed back.
“Stop.” I was shaking, filled with adrenaline.
“Move.”
“No.”
She grabbed my shoulders. I locked my legs and for a while was able to hold her, until she threw her height and weight into her lunge, forcing me aside. Within seconds she was dumping the contents of my bag onto the floor. She found the flashlight, Ellie’s spare key, and the scarf, but not the sketch pad.
That I had somehow managed to drop in the bushes outside the kitchen door.
“You lied. You took a scarf,” she hissed.
I straightened up. “I liked it.”
We stared at each other.
“Fine. You know what? I’m going home. You’re pathetic.” She gathered her belongings, and a few of mine, like the snow globe she’d brought me back from Canada and the sequined headband she’d given me last Christmas. She paused beside a framed photo of us on my thirteenth birthday before tossing it in the trash can next to my dresser. Then she flicked off the lights and stormed out of my room, slamming the door shut.
I turned the lights back on and sat on my bed, waiting for my heart to calm. It didn’t exactly return to normal—I felt too alive for that—but eventually, I stopped feeling so jumpy.
I knew that in a few days Lola would get over our fight. That’s how it was with her. Little blowups that blew over eventually. But Ellie . . . what would she do if she found out about the sketch pad or the scarf? Just the thought alone made my heart clutch up.
Feeling like this was like standing on the edge of this cliff: I wanted to jump, even if the water turned out to be shallow.
I was tired of playing it safe. I wanted the free fall. And that scared me.
16.
You’re only a year older than me, but you’ve always been so much wiser to the way this world works. How everything we’ve accumulated . . . mud on my thigh, or a dandelion clinging to the back of my wrist . . . can be washed away.
Sarah
AFTER. FEBRUARY.
Another Sunday and my sisters go to church. I imagine them folded into pews, hymnbooks pressed against their thighs as they sing songs, hold hands, recite the Lord’s Prayer.
I am home alone, with a soggy bowl of Cheerios in my lap, awaiting their return. And when they return, I watch them, trying to decipher their native rituals. I’ve learned many things about Sundays. But mostly I’ve learned that Mom sees and knows nearly everything, even if she pretends she does not.
She clears her throat when Meg mentions that Dad isn’t home this Sunday like he promised. Sighs resolutely when Jess pretends to eat her food before pushing it aside. Smiles patiently as Mattie struggles to read a Dora the Explorer book.
Tires squeal. Meg dissolves into laughter. Mattie hops off Mom’s lap, wanders to the window, and peeks outside. Jess pushes away her plate and joins the others to silently view the world beyond. Through the window, I can see that this day is glorious. Later it might turn cold and damp, but for right now the sun shines brightly and there is the promise of spring in the way the light wraps around the tree’s bark. For the first time in months, I want to go outside, feel that sunshine on my face.
I move closer, but not too close, stopping to retrieve the picture frame. I stare at the happy family—a much glossier version of the one I know. When I set it back on the table, Mom catches my eye and nods toward the girls. “To be young,” she says with a wistful smile, as if I am someone who has waged her own war with adulthood.
Now the room is absolutely muted—just the girls at the window and me staring at Mom.
Minutes pass, and the sounds begin to filter back in: Meg whispering to Jessie, and Mattie giggling.
Eventually, I go, “Mom . . .” And her head twitches in that mom way that means she’ll respond if my voice rises in panic; otherwise, the dimmer is on and she’s lost in her private thoughts. Still, the words continue forming slowly, first inside and then out: “Do you want to go for a walk—”
But my words are drowned out by Meg’s booming voice. “Oh my God! Oh my God! I love him! I do!” She spins on her heels; her dangling barrette drops defiantly to the floor. She pretends to faint onto the couch, her legs comically straight in the air. Mattie, sensing the opportunity to play, takes a running leap and lands with a thud on Meg’s body. Jess continues to stare out the window. Mom turns to me, her face preoccupied.
“Did you need something, Sarah?” she asks.
And it’s this word “need”—the act of taking from her, not giving to or sharing with—that makes the sentence fold into some dark corner inside my body. I shake my head. She smiles kindly, the mom mask firmly in place.
On the couch, Meg tickles Mattie until she giggles uncontrollably.
And like that, the moment disappears.
* * *
That evening, I’m curled up in bed, watching Lifetime, when Tommy enters my room without knocking. I haven’t seen him since our incident three weeks ago. Not one word in twenty-one days, but suddenly, as if by magic, he’s back. And from the looks of it, all he wants is to examine my belongings.
He pauses beside my dresser, fingers the trinkets Mom’s placed there to make this room feel more like my own: my grandparents’ wedding picture, a tiny marble jewelry box she gave me when I turned seven, a hand-carved jade elephant my father brought back from a trip abroad. His hand stops when it reaches an unopened package. He runs his palm over the box’s hard brown edges. Looks at the label. Jake. Then looks at me.
He’s too far to touch—the edges of the area rug are barely beneath his Adidas—but I see his hand drift toward his mouth, the skin around his fingernails as raw today as three weeks before.
“Have you heard from him recently?” I ask.
He picks up the package, gives it a little shake. With it lying flat on his palm, he appears to estimate its weight. “Yeah,” he says, “but he wasn’t really making any sense. I think this whole thing with Ellie has him torn up.” He sets the package back down. “When did this come?” he asks, too casually.
“I don’t know. Last week, I think.” I don’t add that it’s been sitting on my dresser ever since. That the thought of what’s inside fills me with dread.
“Why haven’t you opened it?” He taps the box. “Aren’t you curious?”
I’m painfully curious. But I’ve also examined the evidence—Ellie’s death, Jake’s absence even before the hospital, the fact that nothing good has existed or ever will exist between us—and drawn the conclusion that what’s in that box is another big fat piece of hell.
“Well?” Tommy prods.
I roll my eyes, poker-faced, but there’s something about the way Tommy looks at me, like he doesn’t believe my bravado, that makes the other words tumble out. “Did he tell you he’s never called? Not once since he left. He never even came to the hospital. He . . .” I continue on and on, fully aware that I sound like some whiny five-year-old chasing after an ice-cream truck. When I’m done, I wait for the inevitable: Tommy cracking a joke about how I must have my period or something. But he doesn’t. He just sits on the edge of my bed and rests a comforting hand on my foot.
This is one of Tommy’s numerous complexities. It’s like when he knows you’ve been pushed too far, he’ll stop all the pushing and simply hold on to you.
Tommy slides closer. “Seeing you like this . . . I hate it.” He studies my face, all concerned-like. And it takes me back to eleventh-grade marine biology, when Ellie assigned our social circle aquatic identities.
“Jake’s a dolphin. Because like Flipper, he’ll rescue you. You’re a starfish—”
“Sea star,” I corrected. For the last twenty minutes Mr. Fox had explained the difference in detail, but Ellie had a habit of drifting off sometimes. “It’s an echinoderm, same as the sand dollar, not the same as a fish.”
“You’re a nerd,” Ellie said, a crooked smile on her face. “And a sea star.”
“Why sea star?” For some reason I’d thought she’d pick a turtle or a frog, something common and not quite as beautiful.
“Because you’re mutable,” she said, proving she had been listening. “That’s why you always do fine. And . . .” She scrutinized me. “You’re also really bony.” Which was a less flattering feature of a sea star.
“I’m a sea horse—”
At this I laughed. “Because you plan on being monogamous and mating for life?” Ellie had kissed at least two dozen guys during our spin-the-bottle phase, but unlike me, she had never longed for a real boyfriend.
“No,” she said, something unreadable moving across her face. “Because I can easily die of exhaustion.”
I should have asked her what she meant, but at the time, I only said, “And Tommy?”
“Oh. Obviously, a sea jelly.”
After some research, I discovered this was obvious. Like a sea jelly swimming blindly through the dark sea, Tommy was relatively harmless unless provoked. But if provoked . . .
With this in mind, I still whisper the dreaded question, because I just have to know. “Does Jake . . . does he hate me?”
“Fuck, Sarah . . .” Tommy averts his eyes, which seems to be an answer of sorts. “Does that matter? You just said he didn’t come to see you in the hospital. I’ve been here almost every week. Where the fuck has he been?”
Tommy stands, and all his warmth goes with him. He gets the package and brings it to me. “Open it.”
I look out the window. The sun is down now, the bare trees swaying fiercely in winter’s heavy wind. Even huddled against the cold, they are more alive than me.
“No,” I say, feeling slightly stung. “Right now I just don’t want to care.”
“Good.” He sounds relieved. “I’m pretty sick of you caring. All right?” He takes a few deep breaths; then he goes back to caressing my foot. “Let’s just watch a movie. Something funny. You want to do that?”
I nod, knowing he’s right. That I need to face the facts. Jake doesn’t care about me. And I shouldn’t care about him. But doing that isn’t as easy as Tommy would have it be.
I make room for him on the bed, and stop myself from protesting when he wraps me in his arms. The movie begins, and for the next two hours we are simply Sarah and Tommy. Friends. Almost lovers. The only two left in a set of f
our.
* * *
After Tommy leaves, my sisters return, bearing signs of leftover popcorn in the corners of their perfectly flossed teeth. Mom disconnects me from Lifetime TV and wonders aloud about the unique smell in my bedroom, the one that often follows Tommy and his red eyes around, and reminds me of my appointment with Concerned Therapist on Wednesday, and asks why don’t I get up and take a shower or something. Then she leaves me alone, and from the corner Jake’s package beckons to me.
Will it always be like this? Will I always be that lame girl who loved that boy who never loved her back? Who can’t be happy with what she has because of what she wants? What I’ve always had is Tommy. What I’ve always wanted is Jake.
I reach for the package, and, like Tommy, I try to gauge its weight. Then I sit with it on my thighs and stare at it. I think about the sea jellies, swimming in darkness, stinging blindly. And about Ellie’s sea horse, fighting wave after wave of endless ocean.
And that bubble in my chest expands—waiting, threatening to suffocate me—but I control my panic by remembering what Ellie said. That I am a sea star. That I can change. Survive.
With shaking hands, I peel back one corner of the package and then the next. Soon the exterior wrapping lies on the floor. On my lap is a brown box. I open the box and peer at the contents inside. At first it looks like a jumbled mess, but I realize that’s because my vision is blurred. It’s blurred because I’m crying so hard. I take a few breaths to calm myself down, but it’s useless. I can’t control this.
34 Pieces of You Page 9
