Out of Control

by Sarah Alderson

  ‘It’s the same with what’s happened today,’ I say. ‘They’re all dead because of me. All those people.’ My voice peters out. My throat burns but the tears don’t come. It’s wrong that there aren’t any. I want to cry. But I’m all carved out, dried up.

  Suddenly Jay’s hand is beneath my chin, tilting my face up to meet his.

  His eyes are alight, the green blazing. ‘You’re not responsible for all the shit in the world, Liva.’

  I look away, at the little children all seated on a row of steps, eating their sandwiches, laughing and chatting.

  ‘You saved my life,’ Jay tells me still holding on to me, forcing me to turn back.

  I blink at him. We both breathe in, tight, as though our ribs are bound. And then suddenly he pulls me against his shoulder and his arms are around me. My face is buried in the warmth of his neck and I breathe in the clean soap smell of him, the musky undertone scent of his skin beneath, and for a moment I feel myself letting go, falling off the edge of that building, dropping into oblivion.

  ‘You saved both our lives,’ he whispers into my ear.

  21

  I move away first, my heart beating uncertainly, and start busying myself rummaging through the bag, pulling out our new phones and the NYPD sweater. Jay kicks his legs up on to the sun lounger that’s flush to mine and leans back with his arms behind his head again. A small part of me wants to curl up against him and bury my head in his shoulder once more. It felt safe when his arms were around me. For a moment I was able to forget about everything else going on and let my guard down. I was able to believe that maybe he was right – that maybe what happened to Felix wasn’t my fault after all. But now I’m jittery again, my pulse skidding then slowing, skidding then slowing, as though it can’t figure out what speed to run at.

  I can feel Jay watching me as I open the phones and insert the SIM cards, and my skin feels like a feather is being trailed slowly and deliberately over every bare inch of it – an electrified feather. My hands shake. God. What is with me? I’m not even sure if I’m imagining the intensity of his stare. Maybe he’s not actually staring at me at all. Maybe he’s just admiring the view. Or checking we’ve not been followed. I rub my eyes. I’m so tired. I can’t ever remember being this tired before. I glance around at the happy chattering tourists and picnicking school children and feel like there’s a glass wall dividing us from them.

  Are we safe here? I don’t know. But where is safe? So far – nowhere. This is the best I could come up with. My hand instinctively moves to the bag, feeling for the heavy bulk of the guns. Maybe I should sneak one out and hide it under the sweater. But then the sound of children’s squealing laughter drifts past and I realise that that’s a dumb idea. It’s too dangerous.

  After I finish programming both the phones I hand one to Jay. ‘You should call your mum. She’ll be worried,’ I say.

  He takes the phone and slips it into his back pocket. ‘Yeah,’ he mumbles.

  I frown at him. For someone who was so keen to have me – a complete stranger – break the news to his mother about his arrest, he’s acting kind of strange.

  ‘You still want me to do it?’ I ask.

  His eyes fly to mine and my pulse quickens.

  ‘No,’ he says and a dark look crosses his face.

  I lie back on the sun lounger, my knees drawn up to my chest and the sweater stuffed behind my head as a makeshift pillow. ‘Do you think the police will have tried to find you? Maybe gone to your house to look for you?’ I ask.

  Jay’s glaring at the horizon, squinting at the Statue of Liberty in the distance. His expression is so black that I expect to see a bank of storm clouds rolling in across the horizon ready to swallow the city.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says in a neutral voice, but I can tell that he’s been considering this very thing. ‘It’s possible.’

  My stomach muscles are tense and I wait a few seconds before I ask the question that’s been burning on the tip of my tongue for the last few hours. ‘Why’d you steal the car?’

  Jay breathes in deeply before turning his head in my direction. ‘I had to.’

  I try to control my facial expression – keep a poker face – but the cynic in me rears up and my eyebrow shoots up of its own accord. ‘You had to? What? You had a gun held to your head?’

  His look darkens even more and my stomach flinches in response. ‘No,’ he says before looking away, shaking his head. ‘It’s complicated,’ he murmurs. Then adds, ‘But I didn’t steal it.’

  I can’t help smirking. ‘So you weren’t driving a car that didn’t belong to you, without the owner’s permission?’

  Jay turns his head slowly back, observing me through half-lowered lashes, and I think he’s angry and I instantly regret my tone, but then I see the small twitch at the corner of his mouth. ‘No,’ he admits. ‘I was.’

  ‘Unless they changed the meaning of stealing without me knowing,’ I say, unable to drag my eyes off his mouth and that smile pulling at the edge of it, ‘I think that qualifies as stealing.’

  I might be mistaken but it seems like Jay can’t take his eyes off my lips either and my pulse irritatingly accelerates.

  ‘I was going to take it back at the end of the night,’ he says. ‘Technically, I think you’ll find that counts as borrowing, not stealing.’

  ‘Technically,’ I say, my heart doing a grand jeté in my throat, ‘I don’t think NY state law accepts borrowing as a statement of defence.’

  ‘Wow,’ he says, ‘you know your stuff.’

  ‘My mother is a lawyer. Was a lawyer,’ I correct myself.

  ‘What does she do now?’

  I shrug. ‘Holds dinner parties, keeps up with the Joneses. Actually she overthrew the Joneses. She trampled the Joneses into oblivion.’

  Jay smiles. ‘Well, if she’s anything like you, I imagine she had an unfair advantage over the Joneses.’

  ‘Hold up,’ I say. ‘How are we talking about me again? This is about you. Why did you steal that car?’

  ‘I borrowed the car because I had to. Because I thought it was the right thing to do and there weren’t any other options.’

  I purse my lips but figure that I’m not going to get any more detail out of him. ‘Is that why you’re helping me now?’ I ask. ‘Is that what you meant when you mentioned repaying a karmic debt? Is this your way of making it right?’

  ‘Yeah, something along those lines,’ he mumbles, looking away and scowling once again at the horizon, summoning those clouds.

  I ponder letting things lie but there’s something I really want to know. ‘What’s the deal with not wanting to call your mum?’ I ask.

  He tips his head to one side and considers me carefully, and once again my pulse decides to behave like it’s on a trampoline. ‘I like your accent,’ he says, ‘the way you say mum.’

  And he sidesteps it yet again. I sigh. ‘It’s the English in me,’ I tell him. ‘My mum hates me saying mom. And I went to the English International School in Oman. And anyway you can’t talk, Jaime.’ I try my best to imitate his Spanish inflection but it sounds like I’m hacking up a lungful of phlegm. Jay starts laughing, actually clutching his sides. I reach over and thump him on the leg, except I manage to miss and almost hit him in the balls. He catches my fist in his hand.

  ‘Woah, Rambo, watch it. I want to be able to use that again.’

  That? Oh God. Without warning, the image of Jay pulling his jeans on – the full frontal view I got – leaps into my mind in IMAX Technicolor glory.

  ‘Save the death blows for the people trying to kill us, would you?’ he jokes.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumble, my cheeks throbbing.

  He lets go of my hand and closes his eyes. ‘I think it’s nap time,’ he says, and he yawns.

  I rearrange my sweater pillow once again and hug the bag close to my chest, finding small comfort in the butt of the gun digging into my ribs. Though I try to fight it, after a few minutes my eyes slide of their own accord across to Jay, ly
ing less than a foot away, his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. Is he already asleep? Is it safe for me to sleep too? I wonder. Shouldn’t one of us keep watch?

  I sit up and look around, uncertainly trying to figure it out, and then I stay sitting up, letting my eyes linger on Jay’s face. He looks so defenceless, and I feel a sudden surge of protectiveness towards him and also guilt that I’ve dragged him into this. He looks so young lying there and, ironically, so innocent. But then I notice the stubble starting to darken his jaw and the broad lines of his shoulders filling my dad’s T-shirt and once again the image of him naked flashes with immaculate timing into my mind and I breathe out long and slow, reminding myself he’s anything but a boy. I wonder how old he actually is? Nineteen? Twenty?

  My eyes flit over the rest of his face, pausing on his lips. The smile I’ve come to look for, to rely on as a marker of his mood, has vanished. His lips are parted and suddenly I can’t help wondering what it would be like to kiss him. I picture him pulling me against his body and holding me like he just did and . . .

  ‘I can feel you staring at me.’

  I freeze. Jay’s eyes remain shut.

  ‘I’m not,’ I stammer as every capillary in my body dilates in order to force every ounce of blood in my body towards my face.

  With his eyes still closed Jay reaches his hand towards me and circles my wrist. I wonder what he’s doing but then he gives a gentle tug and suddenly I’m toppling forwards and my head collides with his shoulder. His face stays smooth and expressionless, as though he’s sleeping, but his arm pulls me tighter against his side as naturally as if he’s done it a thousand times before.

  I’m paralysed. My muscles lock and my breathing hikes to the point that Jay must be able to feel my ribs rapidly expanding and contracting. I stare at the smooth tanned skin running to stubble across his jaw and take a deep breath in, feeling myself relaxing ever so slightly against his side, my stomach pressing automatically closer against his hip. I have a sudden urge to fold my leg over his waist and press even closer. OK. I’ll admit it. I am attracted to him. Even if I didn’t admit it, my body wouldn’t let me deny it. But I am not falling for him. This is some kind of survivor guilt syndrome. I’ve seen it in the movies. It’s just the pressure of the situation we’re in. I am thoroughly in control still.

  22

  I wake with a start, my eyes flying open and my heart exploding like an IED in my chest. It takes several seconds for me to get my bearings and to realise that the sound that woke me was just a kid screaming for an ice-cream and not someone screaming in terror.

  Then I realise where I’m lying. Or rather how I’m lying. I am still pressed against Jay’s side. His arm is still around my waist, his hand resting loosely on my hip, and in my sleep I’ve shifted so my cheek is now pressed against his chest and my leg is bent, my knee wantonly thrown across his thigh. A half second after I process this I bolt upright, disentangling myself.

  ‘Morning,’ Jay says with a grin. He’s already awake. God. How long has he been awake for?

  I squint up at the sky. It’s not morning. It’s mid-afternoon, judging from the position of the sun and the shadows stretching across the sun loungers. I brush my hair out of my face and rub a hand over my eyes. I’m groggy and oh my God, my body feels like it’s been run through a mangle. I try to stand and almost fall, having to balance myself against the seat as the muscles in my legs seize up. My knees start smarting from the grazes on them and my shoulder throbs violently. I feel like a walking headache.

  Jay hops up next to me, sprightly as a mountain goat, damn him. ‘You OK?’ he asks me, looking concerned.

  I nod blearily, glancing around, still trying to get my bearings. The High Line is even busier, crowded with people, and it’s seriously hot out. We were asleep in the shade thankfully, but standing in the sunlight I can feel my skin starting to sear. Jay looks fine. The circles under his eyes have faded a little, though the stubble is giving him the look of a vagrant and his T-shirt is rumpled.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ I ask him, embarrassed.

  ‘Yeah, though I got woken up by a mouthful of hair.’

  I squirm inwardly, but notice that among the squirming worms of embarrassment currently writhing in my stomach, a few butterflies are also beating their wings. So not the time for this, I think, rolling my eyes at myself in frustration.

  ‘You hungry?’ Jay asks.

  I consider the question briefly. But my stomach answers first, growling loudly. Jay nods at some food carts lined up in the distance under an overhang. The smells are wafting this way; vanilla and sugar and chilli and onions combining in a way that’s making my mouth water.

  ‘You stay here,’ Jay says. ‘I’ll get us something.’

  I hand him some of the money from the bag and watch him walk off, rolling his shoulders as he goes. For the first time I properly take note of the catlike grace with which he moves, with a strut that’s just this side of a prison swagger. The thing that saves him from looking like a douche is that it’s completely unconscious. He’s not posing. That’s just the way he moves. As though he feels me watching him, Jay suddenly spins around. He catches me in the act of gawping and even from this distance I see the glimmer of triumph in his eyes and the dimple in his cheek as he shoots me a grin. Goddamn. I turn away and rummage in the bag for the phones, mumbling a string of curses under my breath. Really, Liva? You’re choosing now of all times to fall for a guy?

  I never fall for guys. Ever. I didn’t even fall for Sebastian, the one guy brave enough to approach me. I dated him because I was so amazed he had dared ask, and because I felt like bravery like that deserved reward. And, well, with Sebastian, it was also easy to manage the situation. There were no feelings involved. I mean, I liked him. He was fairly good-looking and made me laugh, occasionally. We went to the same school. Our parents approved. It was easy to date him, to go through the motions, without having to worry about doing something as utterly stupid and teenage as falling in love. I don’t fall for guys. I don’t fall. Period. Which is why I have to ignore these really unhelpful and distracting thoughts I’m having about Jay and focus on the situation before we both end up dead.

  I check the time on the phone. It’s 3.46. We slept for almost five hours. That’s pretty impressive, given our beds were basically two uncomfortable slats of wood, though admittedly I had Jay’s shoulder as a pillow. No wonder my body feels as stiff as the boards we were lying on. I’m kind of amazed too that the volunteers working along the High Line didn’t move us on. At that I start thinking about where we should head to next. We can’t stay here all night. For one thing the High Line closes at eleven.

  I’m still trying to think of where we might spend the night that isn’t a park bench, when Jay returns a few minutes later. In one hand he holds two melting ice-pops and in the other a greasy brown bag. He passes me one of the ice-pops.

  ‘There weren’t any bacon caramel flavoured ones so I got you Strawberry Rhubarb Rain.’

  I take it, staring at him in bemusement.

  ‘We’re doing dessert first otherwise it will melt,’ Jay explains.

  He sits beside me and starts enthusiastically licking his ice-pop, and I try very hard not to stare at his mouth.

  ‘Wanna try mine?’ Jay asks, offering it to me. ‘It’s Lemon Basil. I think Felix would have liked it.’

  I smile at him.

  ‘Don’t smile,’ he warns, ‘I used up half our money on these. You would not believe how much they are charging for what’s basically frozen water on a stick.’

  I lean towards him, holding my hair out of my face, and he pulls his hand away at the last second so I almost topple forwards into his lap. He laughs as I scowl at him, then brings the ice-pop back and holds it close to my lips, staring at me the whole time with a half-taunting, half-curious look on his face. I find myself holding his gaze as I take a bite out of his ice-pop.

  I offer him a taste of mine in return and he leans close, his fingers circling m
y wrist to hold it steady.

  ‘I could go for that,’ he says, his eyes locked on mine.

  ‘It’s mine, hands off,’ I tell him, my pulse leaping. He must have felt it – his thumb being pressed to my wrist – because his eyes narrow at me slightly and a strange expression crosses his face before he looks quickly away.

  When we’re done I hold up my sticky hands. Jay is busy licking his fingers clean. He looks at me. ‘What?’ he asks innocently, then rolls his eyes.

  ‘Do you have a tissue?’

  He shakes his head, more in disgust than denial. ‘Man,’ he says. ‘Here.’ He pulls his bandana out of his back pocket and hands it to me.

  I take it, trying to hide my distaste, but he’s like a hawk sighting a mouse from a mile away. ‘What?’ he asks.

  I blank my face, cursing silently. ‘Nothing.’

  He shrugs and gets busy opening up the brown bag. The smell of Mexican food rushes out and smacks me in the nose.

  ‘These look good,’ Jay says, pulling out two well-stuffed, foil-wrapped burritos spewing black beans and sour cream down their sides.

  Jay bites into his with relish but I just stare at mine, calculating the calories.

  ‘Is it the ballet?’ Jay suddenly asks.

  ‘What?’ I ask, my head jerking up.

  ‘Is that what the whole I can’t eat anything with a calorie in is all about?’

  ‘How’d you know I do ballet?’ I ask, startled, trying to shake off the calorie comment, but how the hell did he guess that was exactly what I was thinking?

  ‘I saw the certificates in your bedroom. And you look like a dancer. I mean, the way you hold yourself. You got what my mum would call good posture. And your legs. You have a dancer’s legs.’

  I flush involuntarily. I can feel his gaze on my thighs and I cross them and uncross them self-consciously. No one – not even my mother – has ever called me on my calorie counting before. I’m not anorexic, not by a long shot, but I do have to watch my weight – I don’t naturally have a ballet dancer’s build. I’ve got boobs and hips for a start, long legs but also a long torso. When I meet Jay’s gaze he’s giving me that disarming searching look. I’ve never known anyone so astute, so able to read me, and I squirm under the attention.