The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  I drew the cogs from the boy’s shirt and handed it to Felix. “He was wearing this.”

  Felix stared at it. “I don’t…” His eyes flicked over my shoulder and then he was getting to his feet.

  “Where’s he going?” I asked.

  But then he stopped at the bar, eyes flitting from the sketch to the magazine clippings taped to the back wall. It was a chaotic mural of everything from flyers to posters of local bands sprawling from one end of the restaurant to the other.

  Felix sidestepped between bar stools, leaning over patrons to get a better look. Dani and I followed him toward the front door and then he stopped. He handed me the sketch and then he pointed.

  I saw the symbol I’d drawn—a small glossy cutout partially obscured by a newspaper clipping and a poster of Prince. It was a band flyer from a show three years ago. My breath hitched.

  “I wonder if they’re local,” Dani said.

  “Does it say who they are?” I pushed a fake plant out of the way and tried to get a closer look.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Felix said.

  I pressed my hand to the picture, feeling the shadow of the glue underneath.

  “Not a dead end,” Dani said.

  My cell phone buzzed in my pocket.

  -Where are you?

  It was my mom.

  “Shit. Busted.”

  “Gotta go?” Dani asked.

  I nodded. “She’s probably worried.”

  “I can keep looking,” Felix said. “Ask around.”

  I handed him back the napkin. “Thanks, let me know if you find anything.”

  When Dani dropped me off back at the house I didn’t even bother sneaking in through my bedroom window. My mom was sitting on the couch, flipping through the guide on the TV.

  “Bryn?”

  “I just got some food with Dani, sorry.”

  She patted the couch. Great. I sunk down next to her but she didn’t look at me.

  “About earlier,” she said. “Bryn, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t.”

  She reached for me. “Bryn…”

  “You lied to me.”

  “We—”

  “You lied.”

  She looked away. “There was nothing to tell.”

  “You call that kiss nothing?”

  “Nothing you needed to worry about.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Bryn.” She took a breath. “The last thing I ever want is for you to be upset.”

  “No. The last thing you want is for you to be upset.”

  She looked at me. “You know it’s a trigger.”

  “A trigger. You thought I’d have an episode?”

  “I was just trying to protect you.”

  I heard the quake in her voice then and I bit back my own.

  “Well, stop trying.” I stood. “You can’t protect me from everything. I’m not a child.”

  “You are my child.”

  “I’m seventeen and just because you’re used to caring for me like some kind of infant doesn’t mean I am one. I’m sick, I need you, but don’t use that as an excuse to keep things from me. Not things like this.”

  “I knew you’d be upset,” she said, “and now you are.”

  “Because you lied to me.”

  “Because I lied or because he’s not your dad?”

  I took a step back. “How could you even say that?”

  “Bryn. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  I waited for her to finish but she didn’t. She just sat there, not looking at me. I saw the first tear and then I was running. Because I had to. Because I could.

  The street was dark but I’d run up and down that sidewalk barefoot so many times that even that felt familiar. I walked to the end of the block, counting the cars parked at the middle school across the street. I could hear music spilling from the gym—some spring play or basketball game—and it made me feel safe.

  When I reached the schoolyard I sat down on one of the empty swings, rusty metal heaving with a sharp sigh. I waited for the anger to bubble up inside me like it had been earlier but all I could think about was my mom’s face—something between shame and surprise coloring her cheeks that awful shade of red. And I felt guilty because I loved my mom and because I finally understood why she was alone. Me.

  Seeing her with my uncle had stung but suddenly I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I’d just seen my dad? And because he’d reminded me of everything we’d lost, of everything he’d taken from us. All because he was weak or afraid or just a fucking asshole.

  He’d left one day and just disappeared and that was the template for every major change in my life. This huge cosmic disruption. Toxic. Ruining everything. My uncle’s death. My grandfather’s. My dad leaving. My disease. So I was afraid. That was the sting I’d felt. I was afraid of things changing again.

  The breeze caught the swing next to me, twisting it, and I closed my eyes, listening to it slowly unravel. I scratched at the chill settling over my arms but the cold just hung there, the warm night snuffed out completely.

  My eyes were suddenly heavy and when I finally forced them open, the swing next to me was still twisting, a shadow winding between the braided handles. I watched it dance there like spilled ink, winding in and out until it was creeping towards my face.

  I inhaled and it tasted like ash. Then it stretched, reaching for me, and when the cold scraped against my skin I shuffled out of the swing, stumbling on the rocks. I watched the shadow swell and contract, the air pouring from my lungs thick and tangled in it. Fog hung on my lips, the cold steeling me to the ground.

  The same cold I’d felt that night in the trees with Drew.

  I tried to run but all I could do was flinch against the burning, my skin on fire. It crept towards me and in the mist there were haunches, the darkness beastly like something feral on the prowl. But it wasn’t just fear that pinned me there or even the cold. Something heavy radiated from the shadow, it’s thickness approaching like a storm. It sunk down to my lungs, filling me up, tugging my eyes closed and making me drowsy. Sleep. It was made of it.

  But then, just as I was about to give in, to close my eyes and let it drag me under, the darkness shuddered out in a gasp and the cold lifted. When I looked again the shadow was gone and I scrambled to my feet, running all the way home.

  I rolled over, staring at the clock. It was almost midnight but I couldn’t sleep. The chill was still cleaving to my insides and I couldn’t stop thinking about the thing I’d seen. Or didn’t see. I still wasn’t sure. All I knew was that something had seen me. Right through me. And it was the same thing I’d felt that night at the lake.

  My bedroom door pushed open and I stiffened, peering out from beneath my blankets. I saw my grandmother, another tuft of rosemary in her hands. She sat on the edge of my bed and tucked the rosemary under my pillow before brushing a hand across my forehead.

  I rolled, letting her know I was awake.

  “Bad dreams?” she asked.

  I swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  “You’d tell me, Bryn. If you were having bad dreams you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

  “What do you—?”

  “Have you?” Her hand slid to my shoulder, her grip on me tightening.

  “No.” I shook my head. It wasn’t a dream. That much I knew for sure.

  “Good.” She sighed, her eyes narrowed at the wall. “That’s good, Bryn.” Her voice was soft and it sounded strange. Unnatural.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  She pursed her lips, lifted a finger. “You know, maybe you should ask your mom.”

  I lowered my voice. “She’s still awake?”

  “I guess she can’t sleep either,” my grandmother said.

  When she finally left the room I reached for the empty glass on my nightstand and headed for the kitchen, blinking against the lamplight already pouring from the living room. My mom was still sitting on the couch.

  I abandoned the gla
ss and made my way over to where she was sitting.

  “Oh, Bryn, did I wake you?” she asked.

  “The TVs off,” I said.

  She glanced over at the blank screen, trying to hide her face.

  “Mom—”

  She stopped me. “It won’t happen again, Bryn. I’m sorry if it made you…uncomfortable, angry maybe? I just…it won’t happen again.”

  “It’s over?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “What?”

  I thought about her fighting with me during an episode—fighting to turn me, to change my clothes, to just keep everything together. And she always did this. Acting like she didn’t even exist. Acting like I was some kind of proverbial sun around which everything in her life should orbit. Even though I was the one who was sick, she was the one who chose to be miserable.

  “Don’t do that because of me,” I said.

  “Bryn—”

  “I’m serious. I’m not angry. I’m not…uncomfortable. I was at first. I was taken off guard, that’s all, but don’t do this because of me.”

  “It’s done.”

  “Then undo it.”

  “What? I can’t. I—”

  “Stop being miserable,” I breathed.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I looked her in the eyes. “Are you happy?”

  Her lip trembled, void of words for the first time. She sat there, not looking at me and then she didn’t say yes. She didn’t lie. She didn’t say anything at all.

  19

  Bryn

  I woke to Dani’s wet hair dripping onto my shoulder.

  She’d stayed the night when she missed curfew and was too afraid to face her mom in the morning. She’d been out with Matt, parked somewhere and making out in the bed of his truck. My bed was going to smell like fish and pond water for a week but when she’d texted me I was relieved. I was tired of staring out my bedroom window, shuddering every time the curtains fluttered, waiting for that thing to find me.

  I crawled out from under the blankets, trying not to wake her, and grabbed my laptop. I scanned my inbox but there weren’t any new emails from Felix. I checked my phone—no texts either. I glanced at the clock. 10:30. He would probably sleep in until his shift at the garage at noon.

  “Did he find anything?” Dani sat up, yawning.

  “Not yet. Sorry, did I wake you up?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Did something happen last night?” I asked.

  “With Matt? Not exactly.”

  I raised any eyebrow.

  “Okay. So maybe he’s not as…”

  “Great as you thought?”

  “He has a lower back tattoo,” she said, deadpanned.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “And I mean lower lower back. As in more like an ass tattoo. Of his grandmother’s name.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I wish.”

  “Are you sure it’s his grandmother’s name? Could be an ex and he just—”

  “I met her at a match once. Plus, how many seventeen-year-olds do you know by the name of Ethel?”

  “Yikes.”

  “I know. I’m hung-over and we didn’t even drink.”

  “There’s orange juice,” I said. “Oh, and some Pop-Tarts.”

  “Do you have anything sugar free?”

  I crept into the kitchen but it looked like my mom and grandmother were already out for the day. I opened every cabinet and searched every pantry shelf but I couldn’t find anything that hadn’t been chemically processed and wasn’t choked in sugar.

  I stepped back into my bedroom and Dani was at my desk.

  I handed her a mug. “Coffee. Black.”

  “Thanks.” She took a long drink without batting an eye. “So what next?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The symbol wasn’t a dead end but who knows how long it’ll take Felix to track down which band it belongs to. In the meantime what’s your next move?”

  “I don’t really have one. I guess, wait?”

  “That’s it?”

  “I don’t know. If he’s a future memory, won’t I end up meeting him anyway?”

  “Maybe. But he didn’t show up out of normal circumstances. What if you don’t meet under normal circumstances?”

  Normal. I waited for that word to mean something. My life wasn’t normal but since the boy showed up even the abnormalities were starting to feel tame. Because things had changed. I had changed.

  I thought about the night before and I looked at Dani. “I think I…” saw something.

  “What?”

  I felt the chill again, could taste it on the tip of my tongue. I bit it back.

  “I think I forgot something in the kitchen.”

  I took Dani’s cup and refilled it before bracing my hands over the sink. Then I stared into the steel bottom, my reflection warped and fuzzy and wrong. Breathe, Bryn. Just breathe.

  I ran the water, holding my fingertips under the stream before trailing it onto the back of my neck, and then I went back to my room.

  Dani’s phone buzzed and she flopped onto my bed with a sigh.

  “Matt?” I asked.

  “Felix.”

  “Felix. What happened to Matt?”

  “Nothing. Felix is just asking me what we’re doing.”

  “We. Right.”

  “Are you going to be annoying about this forever?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Did he say if he found something?”

  “He says he’s still working on it.”

  She rolled onto her back, smiled at something Felix said.

  “You know he asked if you were going away to school next year.” She ignored me. “Have you thought about that?”

  Dani hadn’t even thought about starting her senior project yet—a required summary by every senior of the past four years of high school: all of their assignments, class projects, awards, pep rallies and other methods of forced participation—everything boiled down to some cheesy slideshow or weird installation or 5,000 word essay. I doubted she’d thought as far ahead as her freshman year of college.

  The truth though was that I hadn’t really started on my senior project either. There were too many holes in my high school experience to be able to even call it that. It was more like a very brief observation. One in which I hung back in Dani’s shadow, walking that line between trying to make people notice me and trying to make sure they didn’t. Neither ever really worked.

  “Dani?”

  “Huh?” She didn’t look up.

  “School. Have you thought about it?”

  “Oh. I don’t know. Stay here, I guess. If I go at all…”

  “If?” I took a breath, tried not to sound like my aunt. “So you haven’t decided yet?”

  “No.” She rolled onto her stomach, still texting. “I don’t know. College is kind of a waste these days, don’t you think?”

  “A waste?”

  All I could hear was the sharp click of her nails on her phone. My face grew hot and I moved to sit by the window.

  All I’d ever wanted was to go to Emory. That’s it. I’d never been the typical kid who wanted a pony or a trip to Disney World or a new car or a closet full of designer clothes. I didn’t live in the real world long enough to actually enjoy any of those things anyway. No. What I lacked, what I wanted was to live. To really live. The way other people my age did. Moving away to school, being independent, being free. College to me was freedom and Dani just thought it was a waste.

  Suddenly the sound of her phone buzzing was drowned out by another sound—tires grating against the curb, an engine ticking off. I looked outside and I saw my dad’s face behind the dusty window of his truck. He was just sitting there, staring at our front door.

  “He came back.”

  “What?” Dani sunk down beside me. “Who?”

  “My dad. I mean, Patrick. I mean…what the hell is he doing h
ere?”

  “Is he coming to the door?” she said.

  I watched him walk past my bedroom window and then I heard a light knock. My mom had taken my grandmother out for the day and my uncle hadn’t come by since the day I’d caught him with my mom.

  “Are you going to answer it?” Dani asked.

  I knew what my mom would do. Turn up the volume on the television, pretend like he wasn’t out there the same way he’d pretended that we didn’t exist. Maybe my grandmother would chase him off the porch with a broom, threaten to call the police, throw some of her leftover spaghetti at him as he stumbled back down the steps. Because they’d all had their say.

  My mom had cussed him out in a Wendy’s parking lot. I sat in the car for almost an hour while she cried and yelled and cried some more. According to myth my grandfather gave him an epic ripping once after he’d disappeared for a weekend shortly after I was born. And my uncle had taken every one of his rare reappearances as an opportunity to do the same. Everyone had had their say except for me.

  I walked to the door, steps muted against the carpet, and then I just stared at him through the peephole. His face hadn’t changed much since the first time I’d stood there trying to decide whether or not I should open the door. He still had the same grey eyes, same blonde scruff on his chin, same dingy baseball cap. He gripped his chin, waiting, and I could see the chalk dust on the side of his hand. Maybe he’d found a construction job in town. Maybe that’s why he’d come back. Not so he could see us. Not for me.

  I turned the knob and watched him stiffen.

  “Bryn,” he said. “You’re home.”

  There was something like surprise in his voice and it made me wonder if he’d been hoping my mom would answer the door. He had that same wanting look in his eyes he’d had that day I tried to be like her—fixing my hair and my clothes in a fury just on the other side of the door. Because I’d always known that I’d been the easy one to leave. It was her he still wanted.

  “What do you want?” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  “She’s not here.”

  “Oh. I could wait. We could talk. We haven’t talked in a long time. It’d be nice.”

  “Six months,” I said.

  “What?”