In first grade, Mrs. Hilliard spent two days a week running the school library. She saw things, asked a lot of questions, until the day my dad walked into the principal’s office wearing an American flag T-shirt and his “I’m a vet” face, shouting at the principal to mind his own business. Mrs. Hilliard kept her lips zipped from then on, but she never stopped watching me, an ever-present shadow hanging over me as I browsed the shelves or curled up in a corner with Little Women.
She retired at the end of the year and volunteered at the public library. Whenever I went there, she’d ask how things were at home, would sit with me for a few minutes, telling me about my mom, about how she was a student when Mrs. Hilliard first started at the school library. She said I looked like my mom. The same eyes, the same mannerisms. I was just like her, she’d say. She always made it sound like it was a good thing.
“What do you remember about Nevada?” I ask Will. He extends his arm over the back of my seat and shrugs.
“Not much. It’s hard to remember much about where I’ve lived. I don’t know. Bushes? And the mountains. It was northern Nevada, so not in the flat desert or nothing. There was snow in the winter.”
“I think I could be happy never seeing snow ever again.” There’s a long season of snow in North Dakota. It’s not so bad when you’re let out to skate and play hockey. But it makes for a crappy six months of the year when you’re stuck inside all the time.
“Yeah. Vegas probably don’t get snow.”
“Probably not.”
I kiss the inside of his elbow. And blush. It’s funny how some big moments, full of kissing and touching and everything, don’t make me embarrassed, but the little ones do.
I’ve asked Will about all the places he’s lived before. He lists them off, one by one, as though he’s recounting someone else’s history. Nevada, then some time in California. At one point his grandma, his mom’s mom, tracked him down and took him to live with her in Colorado. That was one of his worst times. She liked to put her cigarettes out on anything that moved. The cat, the TV screen, Will. When she died, an uncle took Will to Nebraska and tried to make a man out of him by locking him out of the house at night, just because.
Because you’re a man if you can fight off a coyote at the age of ten.
His uncle’s wife, a decent woman, Will says, took him with her when she fled to North Dakota. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment for a few months. Will was by himself most of the time, since his aunt worked day and night, but after everything else, it was a blessing to be left alone.
Then she met a guy who didn’t want kids around, and Will went to the state.
I told Will once that I was grateful for the way my life was. At least I didn’t have to move all the time. At least I knew a couple of people, people who talked with me and ate lunch with me most days. I had Lindsay. Even Mrs. Hilliard, who remembered things about my mother I never knew and set aside books she thought I would like. The teller at the bank who didn’t care that I signed my dad’s name on his checks for him when I went to cash them. Will gave me a weird look when I said those things, like he couldn’t believe my experience had been better than his.
But I never went hungry for days, waiting for my aunt to get home, and I don’t have a parade of little round scars on my forearms like he does.
“Hey, how far is Vegas from California?”
“I don’t know. Pretty close. Here, check the map.” He pulls the map book from under his seat and I set it across my lap, flipping pages till I get to Nevada. I press my finger against the dot that is Vegas and another against the border and bring them together. I check the scale and make an estimate.
“Yeah, it’s really close. A couple of hours, maybe? Let’s go there sometime, okay?”
“Definitely.”
“I want to see the ocean. And the stars.”
“They’re probably the same stars like everywhere else.”
I laugh. “Not those stars. The ones on the sidewalk in Hollywood. And the place where actors have their handprints in the ground.”
“I didn’t think you were into all that stuff.”
“I’m not. But it’s Americana, right? I mean, we’re supposed to do things like that and take pictures and say we’ve been there. I want to say I’ve been there. I want to do it all. See the Statue of Liberty someday. Disneyland. Other countries. All of it.”
“Okay, we’ll go. Some weekend after we get settled in. We’ll go to Hollywood. And the ocean, too. Promise.”
“I’d like that.”
I’ve never actually owned a swimsuit. I’ve never set foot in a pool, and I don’t know how to swim. I’d probably run screaming if I actually saw an ocean wave, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to go and see what happens. It might be nice to discover something scary in a way I’d never known before. The heart-racing, in-love-with-the-risk kind of scary. Not the hide-away kind.
“Can you swim?” I ask him.
“Yeah. I lived in an apartment that had a pool. The complex, I mean. I learned one day.”
“In one day? Wow.”
“It was either that or drown. I got pushed in by this neighbor guy one time. I was playing on the concrete with a Tonka truck and he just ran up and shoved. Jeans and shoes and all. Thought it was funny to dunk the kid.”
“It doesn’t sound funny.” I see a little Will, falling into the water, splashing, clamoring for help. He cries out, he chokes. I close my eyes against the image.
“Nah, but at least I learned to swim.”
WILL
ONE OF THE PROBLEMS WITH DRIVING A FORTY-YEAR-old muscle car is that gas ain’t cheap no more. We’re a couple hours into Wyoming when I pull off to fill the tank. It’s late and I figure twenty-four-hour gas stations will disappear in this part of the woods. Or plains. There’s a sandwich shop in the convenience store, so I pass Zoe a twenty and she runs in to buy dinner while I pump.
The sky is cloudless. The air sharp and cool. The wind is picking up, blowing dust and gas fumes my way. I squint against it, try not to breathe too much, and look toward the store. Zoe’s second in line and there are two guys behind her. I watch them carefully ’cause one of them’s wearing a denim jacket over his flannel and, I don’t know, denim jackets rub me the wrong way.
They’re talking about Zoe.
I don’t think Zoe even realizes it.
How come she don’t notice? Why hasn’t she learned to be suspicious of everything? I wipe my hand across my forehead. I hate that. That she don’t watch out for things better.
They’re standing a couple of feet back, but their hands and their eyes and their words are all moving forward, toward her. They laugh and shove each other. I grip the gas pump like it’s one of their thick necks and hiss.
One of them taps Zoe on the shoulder, and she turns, her eyebrows raised. Her lips form the word, “What?” The guy who didn’t tap Zoe is smirking. What’s he smirking at? What’s he even doing touching her? The other one, the one in the denim, gives her a smile and a flick of the chin.
Zoe gives them a half smile and goes to face forward again when the guy asks her a question. She answers, politely. She’s a nice girl. Nothing like me.
The guy says something else and Zoe blushes.
She blushes.
I yank the nozzle from the car and slam it back onto the pump. Gas leaks onto my hand. I’m watching them as I screw the gas cap in place and close the cover. They’re laughing again and I know Zoe can hear it. I can hear it from here.
Her back is rigid now. Arms crossed. Shoulders square. What did they say to make Zoe blush? Bastards. What did they say?
I walk toward the store with long strides, and the customer in front of Zoe is taking her food and walking away. Zoe drops her arms to move forward, to order our dinner, when the guy in denim grins his filthy grin at his friend and slaps Zoe’s ass.
Son of a bitch.
I’m going to knock out what’s left of his rotting fucking teeth.
I rush the doorway �
��cause there’s nothing else in my line of vision. No cars, no pumps, no landscape going on forever. All I can see is the doorway and the woman before Zoe coming out and how I’m going in and the shithead’s denim jacket, which I’m going to rip off and suffocate him with.
Denim jacket.
I reach for it, the jacket. The guy’s shorter than me, not by much. But he’s got at least thirty pounds on me. Don’t matter. A wolf can take down a buffalo if it needs to.
He swears when I lift him off his feet. The jacket makes his arms, his shoulders scrunch up into his chest. He looks like a beetle, all flailing arms and legs.
“You need help?” I seethe and spit my words into his face. “You need help keeping your hands off girls? I got help for you.”
I say something else, but I don’t know what. Maybe it weren’t even real words, just noise. I hear Zoe, and I feel the guy’s friend grabbing at my arms. There’s some other shouting, too. It’s noisy around me, but inside there’s clarity. It’s just me and Denim Jacket’s wild eyes. I set him down long enough to draw my arm back and connect with his trembling mouth. He sprawls to the ground, clutching at his face. He’s soft. Thirty pounds more than me but it’s all soft.
His friend is different.
His fist hits my ribs before I even see the punch coming. The air flies out of me but the rage grows. It’s shoving and clawing at me like it wants to burst from my belly and eat everything around me. I see Zoe right behind the guy, grabbing his arm, and I’m furious that they did this to her, that she’s being pulled into this mess.
Denim Jacket’s off the ground now, but he’s within range of my foot, so I kick his lower back and he falls again. There is a force, a blow, to the side of my head. I stumble back, become friends with the chips display. I feel the crunching of the bags under me and a boot to my knee. I grit my teeth against the pain and grab the guy’s leg, yanking him to the floor. The sound his head makes as it hits the ground is so satisfying.
There’s a shout and a noise like a backfire. Everything goes deathly still and the three of us are staring at the wrong end of a hot rifle.
“Get out,” the rifle says. “Get out. Mosely, I’m charging you for this mess. ’Cause you can’t keep your damn hands off what ain’t yours. But you”—I see an eye move from behind the rifle and fix me with a devil’s stare—“get the hell outta my store. And take that damn girl with you.”
Zoe wraps her hands around my arms and we bolt out of there.
Denim Jacket grins and wipes his bloody lip as we make our escape.
It’s warm in the car, warmer than usual, but my chest is even warmer and my head’s fucking on fire.
Zoe reaches for my cheek when we get inside. I jerk away, swearing when my knee connects with the dash. “Don’t. What the hell?”
“Don’t what? Are you okay? Is your knee okay? Can you drive?” She reaches for my leg. I swat her hand away.
“I’m driving now. See me driving?” I’m so pissed about this whole thing. “Were you flirting?”
It ain’t what I meant to say.
I meant to ask if she was all right.
She freezes.
“What?”
“Were you flirting?” Dammit, I can’t keep my mouth shut. I can’t control this other person inside me that makes me shout stupid, angry things.
“Don’t yell at me!”
I try to calm myself, but I’m like a boulder rolling toward a cliff, picking up speed as I go, and ain’t no stopping until I fall off the edge.
“Why were you talking to that guy? What’d he want? You just stood there and let him do it!”
Her arms are folded like she don’t want me getting close to her, and I can’t stand that, so I shake my head as though that can shake the anger outta me and hold my hand to her, move to get close to her. My voice is strained on the outside, but I’m hot, bursting bubbles and pleading on the inside. Be sorry. Don’t be angry. Be sorry. The sorry ass that I am. My hand’s in the air. Just there. Like, I want to reach for her and touch her face.
But I go too fast and I don’t know what it looks like to her until she does the worst thing ever.
She flinches.
Suddenly, I ain’t mad at her or at some guy or anyone or anything at all but me.
I’m like a boulder, rolling out of control. Until I fall. Or until she catches me, cradles me in her palm.
“No.” The word chokes out of me like there are a million other words I gotta get out, too. “Zoe, no, God, I’m sorry. I’d never. You know I’d never.” And I’m dropping my hand to hers and pulling it to me, worried that I’m holding her too hard or shaking her or squeezing her too much or something, anything that could hurt her. “I’ll never do that,” I tell her knuckles.
“Let go of me, Will. You’re scaring me.”
I drop her hand under the blow of her words and ram my head back into the headrest. I wince at the pain in my spine and put my hands on the wheel where she can see them, where she can see they ain’t gonna do nothing wrong.
“I’ll never hit you, Zoe.”
Her eyes are softer now, liquid and cinnamon. She’s looking at my cheek. I know it’s bleeding and I want to wipe at it, so she ain’t so worried about it, but that would mean I’d have to take my hands off the wheel and see her flinch again. I won’t. I’ll cut them off first.
“I know you won’t. It wasn’t that. Not really. But … you have to understand, Will, I … I see him when you’re like that, is all. My dad. Will, you were so angry.”
She says it like she’s the one who’s got to say sorry, like she did anything wrong at all. I close my eyes, shut out the road, tell her that I ain’t her dad, that I won’t never treat her like that.
That I’m sorry.
This anger-person: he needs to go away before I destroy us both.
ZOE
THEY SAY YOU END UP WITH THE MEN WHO ARE JUST like your dad. Right? That you’re psychologically predisposed to picking an alcoholic or a cheat or an abandoner, or something like that.
I always thought psychology was weird.
I’m thinking this; at least I think I’m thinking this, but I’m not. I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud—the part about choosing men just like your dad—until his groan reaches my ears. It’s a cut-up sound, full of regret and hopelessness. He pulls off the road and stops the car. He buries his hands in his hair and slams his forehead against the steering wheel.
“Don’t say that,” he whispers.
I watch him some more. Watch his fingers clutch at his hair. He’s making a noise of some sort, a dying animal kind of noise.
“You’re not like my dad,” I tell him.
But I’m not sure how I can make him believe it.
I can’t believe I jerked back from Will like that.
The fear is too big. Bigger than me. Is that it?
How does a person stop being afraid?
My dad spends most of his drinking time in his chair, staring at the TV and laughing at the dumb shows. But when something sets him off, he’s up fast as a cat getting its tail stepped on.
It can be anything, really. Me, dropping a cake pan in the kitchen. Political commentary. A fly in the house. The unpredictability means I’m never ready for the attack.
In his chair, he’s fragile and white-haired … short, a wasted kind of thin.
It’s a different creature that emerges when he’s angry, but still, all I can see is that old man with a limp and a self-congratulating smile when he guesses the Wheel of Fortune puzzle before anyone else.
I suppose that’s why I can’t fight back.
That, and a genetic weakness. Mrs. Hilliard always said I was just like my mom. I used to think she just meant my eyes or hair color. How we both had soft voices. Now I wonder if it was something more she was always talking about. That we’re both too weak to run from the monsters that chase us.
I put my hand on Will’s cheek and draw him to me.
“Will. You are not like my dad. You don’t w
ant to be that kind of man. But he … he didn’t care what kind he was.”
He’s cut on the side of his face. It’s not bad, but it’s enough to tear my heart open. None of this would have happened if I had just stood up for myself. Walked away, told him to leave me alone. Something. Why couldn’t I have just done something?
“Will.”
I want him to look at me, and finally, he does. His eyes have so many colors in them, green and gold and brown. And they’re searching me for permission for it all to be okay. I brush his hair back and kiss his chin and then kiss his cut. I come away with the flavor of minerals, like water from a pipe gone bad.
“I love you, Will.”
He whispers my name and presses his forehead against mine.
“I love you,” I tell him again, because right now I’m filling up with him. Filling up with how hard he tries and how much he cares about me and how much he wants to save me. I kiss him again and again, hummingbird kisses, until he catches my face again and slows me down. He leans into me until our chests are pressed together and his leg covers mine. I put my hands on every part of him I can reach and I don’t want to stop.
But my stomach rumbles at us.
Will laughs and it’s the most beautiful sound. It diffuses every bad thing between us and leaves only the good.
“You need some food,” he says as he settles back into his seat and pulls onto the road.
I suck on my lips. Revel in the memory of the taste of him.
I’m sure he could sustain me.
Maybe Mrs. Hilliard didn’t have it quite right.
Maybe I’m more like my father than she gave me credit for.
Maybe I’m as desperate for a certain flavor on my lips as he is.
WILL
THERE AIN’T NOTHING OUT HERE. NOWHERE TO STOP or grab a bite or nothing. That’s okay by me. I couldn’t eat if I wanted to. It’s been a couple hours since we passed through a fast food joint, since the fight, but my stomach’s so heavy it feels like I been eating nonstop for days. I’m tired, too. Tired of driving and moving and fighting this thing that’s drowning me. I know I should take care of Zoe, find out if she’s hungry again, but I don’t know what to do if she is.
Nobody but Us Page 5
