One of my hands is at my side, shaking uncontrollably. The other one traces the tiny grooves in the stand. Dad brought this home with the same hands that taught me to tie my shoes, the same hands that taped Band-Aids over my knees and packed my lunchbox. The same hands I held when he died.
This is the most tangible piece of him I have left.
I clap a palm over my mouth, my spine unzipping and all my emotions tumbling out — sadness and elation and hope and grief and delight and joy and helplessness.
This is everything to me.
I hear Owen take a step forward. His breath is in my ear. “Are you okay?” he whispers, but I don’t answer. The tears just keep coming.
“I made a few calls,” Owen explains. “I found it at a pawnshop in Saint Pete. It was in rough shape, and I had to take it here to refinish it; there’s too much humidity in our garage. I just — I wanted to feel like I was doing something that might help you … I don’t know, feel better, I guess? That sounds stupid, because you aren’t sick. But you’re hurting, and I feel so useless.”
He rests his clean-shaven chin on my shoulder and wraps his arms around me. And I close my eyes, praying for time to stop right now, in this perfect moment. With this music stand in front of me and Owen behind me — with their sturdiness holding me upright.
“It’s perfect,” I say, and I’m not sure whether I’m referring to the music stand or not.
“I’m glad you like it.”
His arms are still encircling me when I turn around. “Also,” I whisper, “thank you.”
His expression melts. “You’re welcome.”
I draw in a deep breath, just looking at him, and allow myself to hope. More than I want to admit, even now, I want us again. I want it so badly that it makes my stomach ache.
I remember standing next to him after we dragged that turtle-nest enclosure onto the beach all those years ago. I remember his concern, the earnest set to his jaw, the way he looked at me that day. I remember sitting across from him in Voodoo Pastries, knee to knee, arms touching. I remember every kiss we’ve ever had, every laugh we’ve shared, every time I’ve slid into his arms. I remember us.
Walking away from Owen was a huge mistake.
I can’t go another second with that in my head.
We’re so close. Just a breath apart. He’s staring at me in a way that leaves me feeling light and untethered. My heart is slamming out of my chest. “Owen?” I say. It’s a plea, really. I’m trying to tell him to be careful. I’m trying to tell him how much this means to me, how much he means to me. I’m trying to tell him that I’m damaged. That the best and the worst parts of my life are suddenly woven together as one. That this part — here, now — this is the one I want to pay attention to.
His lips are soft at first, just a whisper on mine. They taste like brown sugar and cinnamon and promises. And then he pulls back, cups my face with both hands and kisses me again. It’s calm and turbulent, blown apart and smashed into creation, all at the same time. I stand outside myself, watching in wonder as the barn doors of my heart burst open with massive force, and just for a moment, just for that one fragile blink of time, the world doesn’t seem like a dangerous place.
#
I’m completely useless after I get home that night. I lie in bed, a book propped in my lap, reading the same paragraph probably twenty times but still not comprehending it. The events of the evening circle inside my head in a loop, a refrain from a favorite song.
Finally I give up and wander out to the front porch, where I settle in my usual spot, turning sideways a little so I can lean against the banister. Offshore, a strobe of lightning flashes upon a bank of approaching thunderheads. The rest of the sky is dark and infinite — a secret whispered too quietly to hear.
I swallow, suddenly overcome with the strongest sense that all of the moving parts of my life are hurling toward one another, that everything is going to collide in a single cataclysmic explosion, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Just then, the front door flings open, and Eleanor, wearing an abundance of purple polyester and hairspray, bumps gracelessly across the porch and collapses beside me, emitting a loud grunt. She looks young and uncomplicated, despite her wrinkles and gray hair and graceless gait. In her hands are a pack of cigarettes and her phone, the latter of which she places beside me with flourish as she says, “There you go, slick.”
I just look at her.
“I got a new phone,” she explains. “Giving you my old one.” She pauses again, presumably waiting for me to reply. When I don’t, she goes on. “I don’t want you to get desperate and steal one. Oh, don’t get all pissy. We both know you have sticky fingers.”
My ears burn. Enunciating my words, I say very slowly, “I would not steal a phone.”
She shrugs. “If you say so.” Shaking a cigarette out of the pack, she flicks her lighter several times before a flame gasps to life.
My eyes lingering on the phone, I say, “What’s the catch, Eleanor?”
She leans back on her elbows and glances at me. “No catch. Just thought you could use it, is all. Take it. It’s yours.”
I pick it up, but I feel sort of spineless. Accepting this phone is like giving Eleanor a free pass for all the crap she’s pulled since I moved in, all the little jabs she’s aimed in my direction. But I do it anyway, pressing the little round button at the bottom and making the screen light up. “Thanks,” I say.
She turns toward me, nods and says, “No problem, kid.”
It’s just a tiny bottle bobbing across the ocean that separates us. Not large enough to carry an important message, but just the right size to show that she cares.
Forty
I awake the next morning to find Janna, in full costume for a Grease rehearsal, banging into my room. Her hair is wild and she’s faintly sweaty. She’s wearing black leather pants and a shiny Pink Ladies jacket. Her eyes are wide and virtuous. It’s a dignified expression, despite the fact that her wig is teased straight up on her head and she’s dressed like a hooker.
“Wake up, get dressed and come with me,” she says. “I found your rapist.”
Forty-One
For a fraction of a second, a sliver of a breath, I don’t understand what she said. Then her words snap through me like lightning, and I sit straight up in bed. “Right. Okay,” I say. My voice sounds weird, tinny and shrill.
Janna doesn’t speak while I get dressed and follow her to the Jeep. I don’t know why she’s silent, but I’m grateful for it. I need all my concentration just to make it outside. The ground seems tilted, pitched sideways, so I grip the seat cushion after I shut the passenger-side door, working to keep myself upright.
“First off, promise me you won’t get mad,” Janna says, glancing over her shoulder as she backs out of the driveway, her hair bouncing stiffly on top of her head. She doesn’t give me a chance to reply. She just slams on the brakes, shoves the car into gear, hits the gas and goes on. “I talked to Andy about Labor Day weekend. I swear I didn’t tell him any of the gory details. I promise, I — oh, my God, breathe, Grace. Breathe.” That’s when I realize my hand is on my chest and my mouth is open and I’m struggling to suck air into my lungs. I lean back in the seat and force in a breath as she goes on. “So I called Andy this morning, and I was like, ‘Hey, do you remember a couple of years ago, when Rusty had a million guys over to watch the Gators’ season opener on Labor Day weekend?’ and he was like, ‘Um,’ and I was like, ‘Did you see anyone go into Grace’s room that night?’ and he was like, ‘Um,’ and I totally knew he was hiding something, so I was like, ‘Dude, I know what happened. Stop protecting him,’ and he was like, ‘He’s not anyone, he’s my brother.’”
Janna jams on her brakes at a stop sign but doesn’t make a move to start driving again. Her mouth is set into a tight line. In the side mirror, I can see cars starting to stack up behind us. Janna tu
rns toward me and grabs my arm like she’s trying to wake me up again. “Sawyer, Grace — it was Sawyer. Andy said he caught him coming out of your room that night, looking guilty as shit. And when Andy questioned him about what he was doing in there, he said Sawyer freaked out on him and threatened him into keeping quiet. Andy is under the impression that Sawyer stole something from your room. Which I guess he did. The asshole.”
“But Sawyer,” is all I can get out before my voice disappears. I inhale and start over. “But Sawyer isn’t the sort of person who …” I stop again, because what am I planning on saying, even? That Sawyer isn’t the sort of person who’s used to getting whatever, whomever, he wants? That Sawyer isn’t the sort of person who thinks he’s entitled to every girl in Florida?
The car behind us honks, and Janna stomps on the gas and takes off, making a hard right on the next street. “As per my dad, track practice starts in fifteen minutes at the high school,” she says, all business. “We’ll be waiting for Sawyer when he arrives.” Her hands tighten on the steering wheel, and she turns and meets my gaze. Her expression is fierce. “I swear to God, Grace, I’ll kill that sonofabitch.”
I shut my eyes. “Janna, I don’t want a scene.” I can hear her drumming her fingers against the steering wheel. “Janna —”
She says, sort of loudly, “I won’t cause a scene.”
Except when we pull into the parking lot beside the school’s practice fields, and we see that Sawyer is already there, getting out of his car, she blasts out of the Jeep like a nuclear bomb, dragging me behind her and stalking toward Sawyer in a way that would probably be considered running if you were to count how much ground she’s covering per second.
As we approach, Sawyer turns in our direction and tosses us his trademark smile. A searing stab of anger shoots through me, because here he is, with his perfect hair and perfect face and perfect life, and here I am, a complete disaster.
Sawyer’s eyes slide to Janna and he says, “Love the getup, McAllister.”
“Shut up,” Janna says, pushing his chest.
Sawyer staggers backward a little, into his still-open car door. He looks at me, then at Janna and then back at me. His grin fades and is replaced by something else. Something uncertain. But then just as quickly, that stupid smile spreads across his stupid face again, and he coolly props his arm on top of the door. He says, “What’s your problem, Janna?”
“That question isn’t at all appropriate for what’s going on right now,” Janna says, sort of through her teeth.
“And what exactly is going on right now?” he says. “Because I’m lost here.”
Janna leans toward him and bellows, “You telling us the truth about what happened on Labor Day weekend two years ago! That’s what’s going on right now!”
Just like that, Sawyer’s confident demeanor vanishes. The color drains from his face. He goes completely still.
The entire world stops. No sounds. No movement. Nothing.
I turn to Janna. “Go wait in the Jeep, please.” When she opens her mouth to protest, I say, “Please.” For a moment, I think she might refuse, but then she gives me a quick hug, tosses a vehement glare at Sawyer, turns on one heel and stalks away.
Then it’s just Sawyer and me. I stare at the wooded area that borders the school, shift my weight, wrap my arms around myself. I don’t know what to do with my body right now. It’s this strange, clunky bit of flesh that isn’t quite attached to my head. I look up at Sawyer. His eyes are wide and anxious. Everything in his stance screams guilty.
I self-consciously yank down the hem on my shorts, wishing I wore a turtleneck and jeans and a hat and boots. Am I supposed to feel this humiliated right now? I don’t know the rules.
I close my eyes. A tear slides down my cheek. I have no clue where it came from — I don’t feel sad. “When I woke up the next morning, after —” I stop and scrub my face with the back of my hand, and then I begin again. “It was pretty obvious that — I mean, my clothes had been — and I was —” I cut off, unsure of why I’m trying to relive this for him. Maybe I want him to understand how damaging it was. Maybe I just don’t know what else to say.
I open my eyes but don’t look at him. I stare at the pavement, where the heat is coming up in waves, making the lines on the parking spaces appear convoluted and warped. When I think of him with his hands all over me, something inside me warps as well.
There’s a beat before Sawyer speaks, the silence hanging charged in the air. Then: “It wasn’t me.”
His denial is so ridiculous that my eyes jerk up to meet his. I say, “Did you go into my room that night?”
He clears his throat. His eyes are darting everywhere. “Yes, but only for a second. And then I —” He swallows and shifts his weight. It’s surreal, seeing him so utterly uncomfortable. “I walked right back out. I swear to God, Grace, I didn’t touch you.”
“Then who did?”
Suddenly, we’re two points on a long, thin black line, staring at each other. And then Sawyer says, “A bunch of us went to watch the fireworks off Holmes Beach. I came back early because I had to take a leak. I walked into your room by mistake, thinking it was the bathroom.” He pinches his eyes closed with a trembling hand. “You have to believe me. He forced me to keep quiet. He said he’d tell everyone about the drugs. That I’d lose my chance to run track for Clemson.”
It’s like he’s speaking a foreign language.
“Drugs,” I repeat.
Sawyer paces in front of me, holding his head like he’s trying to keep it from detonating right off his shoulders. “Why do you think I’m breaking all these records in track? Don’t you think my coach might question whether I’m taking steroids? Dig a little deeper?”
My coach.
I feel like I’m falling off a rocky cliff, tumbling with no ability to stop, falling through two years of confusion and pain and denial, slamming into the jagged, stony truth.
Coach McAllister.
Forty-Two
I stand there, frozen and disoriented, staring at Sawyer for I don’t know how long. I’m not sure I breathe. I’m not sure of much of anything, to be perfectly honest. I hear a truck rattle by on the street, the hiss of a sprinkler on one of the athletic fields.
“Grace.”
Sawyer is walking hesitantly toward me. I want to scramble backward, get away from him, but my feet have grown into the pavement and they won’t move. I’m dead quiet inside — the eye of a hurricane, everything else spinning around me.
“Grace.”
I think, Is this what it feels like to be in shock?
I think, What am I going to tell Janna when I get back to the Jeep?
“Grace.”
I blink several times as Sawyer stops in front of me. His voice pleading and stripped bare, he says, “When I stepped into the room and saw him, you and —” He stops, closes his eyes and shudders like he’s trying to knock the memory out of his head. “He was —” He swallows and bends over, planting his palms flat on the hood of his car, his head hanging low. “And it was obvious you were out of it. Jesus, he threatened me. He told me he’d expose me to Clemson if I told anyone. I’m so, so sorry.” He waits for me to speak, and when I don’t, he straightens up. “Grace, please say something.”
It takes me several moments to open my mouth.
Several more to attempt to speak.
And several more to spin around and take off running, careening from the parking lot to the wooded area beside it, trying to escape the truth, trying to escape Sawyer and Janna, trying to escape the riot of emotions chasing after me.
Coach McAllister.
For two years, he’s gotten up and had breakfast with his family and laughed with his wife and hugged his kids and gotten into his car and driven to work — while rolling emptiness swallowed me whole.
The toe of my shoe catches on the uneven ground, and I st
umble, plunging to my knees. I scramble back up and lurch away.
Owen and Janna.
I will lose them.
Because if I don’t tell them the truth, how can I ever look them in the eye? And if I do tell them the truth, how can they ever look me in the eye?
I can hear Sawyer calling after me, his voice growing fainter and fainter the farther I run. I’m crashing through the shrubbery, the sun strobing through tree branches, blinding me for small increments of time. My mind keeps flashing back to that dinner at the McAllisters’, when Owen’s dad sat across from me at the table, laughing and shaking a breadstick at me.
He’s like family to me.
I stagger against a tree, clapping a hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. I wish I could rewind time. Rewind everything, so I could not be at Rusty’s that Labor Day weekend. Not take Ambien. Not pass out. Not get raped.
But I can’t.
I can’t.
I reel away, bursting out onto the beach about fifty yards from Rusty’s house, barking a loud, humorless laugh, because I’ve run as far and as fast as I can, and yet I’ve ended up right back where everything started.
Forty-Three
Janna knocks on my bedroom door a half hour later.
She says, “Grace? Are you in there?”
I say, “Yes.”
She says, “Why did you run away? I was worried about you.”
I say, “I need to be alone.”
She says, “Can I come in?”
The Leading Edge of Now Page 17
