“Nah, it wasn’t that,” Tavik says with a dry laugh. “I killed someone.”
I managed not to gasp, or trip and fall on my face. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh,” I say, trying to sound cool. “Did they, um, deserve it?”
“No one deserves it.”
“I just meant—”
“You scared of me now?”
“If you were going to kill me, I think it would have happened already.”
He snorts.
“And you don’t seem crazy or anything. Angry, maybe, but not crazy.”
“Ha. Thanks.”
“I’m the one who’s crazy, feels like. Crying one day, grumpy the next, numb the day after that.”
“You seem homesick,” he says.
“You think?”
“Kinda. And you’re angry, too. Different angry from me, though,” he says. “There’s a frequency—different frequencies, that anger vibrates at. Like a clue where it comes from. You gotta learn to read the frequency. You know, in order to get by.”
“In jail?”
“Everywhere. Like our former roommate, Peace? He pretends to be all about the world and injustice, but his anger is all narcissism, ‘poor me.’ Mixed with some psycho rapist mojo, obviously.”
“Okay, let me try,” I say, brave considering I’m talking to a murderer. “Yours has a defensive vibration. Like, ‘stay the hell away from me.’”
“Sure. Probably. Works, too.”
“What about mine?” I say. “Since you’re such an expert?”
I look backward at him, and he grins like he knew I wouldn’t be able to resist.
“You? Angry about injustice, about being here especially. But under that you’re, like . . . screaming mad, like you’re a little kid and somebody took your teddy bear, or your ice-cream cone.”
“Oh, so I’m a petulant child?”
“Not that, exactly. It’s more than that. Deeper. I’m still trying to figure you out, but you’re more than what you say. You’re here for more than what you told us.”
“You calling me a liar?”
“We’re all liars about something.”
We’re silent for a while then, because he’s surprisingly hard to lie to, and I therefore can’t think of any answer to give him. Little threads of heat shoot up my leg from my shin, and I imagine myself telling him about how good it felt to swing the ax. He’d love it. He’d get it. But he’d never just leave it at that, he’d keep digging, and that would suck immediately.
No. I take deep breaths, but my insides are overrun with a twisting, squeezing feeling.
“Hey.” A hand on my shoulder. I must have stopped walking, because he’s right behind me, touching me, this self-professed killer, and his hand is warm and surprisingly heavy.
I turn. The group is a ways back from us—the rule is, we always stay in visual contact with the person in front of us, but throughout the day people naturally fall into pairs and groups and have conversations. The path is longer and straighter now, with more visibility, so we’ve gotten in the habit of spreading out.
“I’m okay,” I say.
“Except not really,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he says, and shrugs. “FYI, I didn’t kill anybody.”
“What?”
He smiles, big and beautiful, no irony in it, and shakes his head.
“Why did you say it, then? Speaking of liars.”
“’Cause that’s what you expected.”
“Untrue.”
“Or, okay, because that’s what you were afraid of.”
“Or because that’s what you’re afraid I was afraid of, and you wanted to see what I would do.”
“See if you would run screaming, you mean?” He studies me, eyes narrowed. “You took it pretty well.”
I laugh.
He laughs.
“That means you’d be my friend, even if I killed somebody?”
“Are we friends?”
“Maybe.” He tilts his head, looks into my eyes. “If you want.”
“Sure,” I say, but suddenly I’m pretty sure he’s shipping a whole other option, which I am definitely not up for, even if it were allowed, even though he is sexy, in that scary-sexy way.
“Hey, I should have killed Bob for you and made it true.”
“Very funny.”
“No, I’m that good of a friend.”
“I don’t want that good of a friend,” I say, not completely convinced he’s kidding. “I just need a regular, straightforward kind of a friend.”
“I’m only joking. Straightforward friend—I’m your guy.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “Non-murderous.”
“There for you,” he says.
“So . . . if you’re not a cold-blooded killer, what did you do?”
“What if I say it’s none of your business?”
“You’d be right. But none of the stuff you’ve been asking me is your business, either. All this sharing of stories can just be part of being friends, regardless of whose business it is. Or so I hear.”
“Fine, I’ll share. I didn’t hurt anybody,” he says, dropping the innuendo and the jokes, finally, but still standing awkwardly close and looking into my eyes.
“Okay . . . ?”
“It’s lame, actually. Breaking and entering. And such a waste, because me and my buddy . . . we were just messing around. Drunk, you know, and being stupid. Although, as I said, I was running tables, and I think the cops knew it, and that’s why we got busted. They were watching.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“They’re catching up,” I say, gesturing toward the approaching group, and suddenly feeling like I don’t want anyone to see us like this—having this long, weird series of intense, close-talking moments. “We should go.”
He nods, steps away, and we start hiking again, this time in silence.
That night, despite being exhausted, I stay staring at the fire after circle, my journal on the log beside me.
Tavik joins me and adds another piece of wood to the fire.
“You mind some company?” he asks, though he’s obviously already decided to stay.
“I don’t mind. I’m not writing at the moment.”
“This whole trip . . . gives you stuff to think about, huh?”
Suddenly I feel my throat tightening, and tears welling up again. I am so not up for it, and yet I know if he starts asking me more questions, I’ll be crying again.
“What things . . .” I say, and then have to swallow. “What has it given you to think about?”
He squats in front of the fire and blows on the coals to make sure the new log catches on.
“Just . . . I gotta figure out a job,” he says, then sits down next to me. “And a place to live. I can’t go back to where I was. Too many people doing the same old thing.”
“And you could get pulled back in?”
“Sure. Like those thought loops, but a life loop. I don’t want that loop.”
“What do you want to do? In life?” I’m feeling better already, with the focus on him.
“School if I can. I finished high school in the pen. With a pretty good GPA, actually,” he says, grinning. “I like to read.”
“Porn?”
We’ve been both looking into the fire as we talk, with just the occasional glance sideways at each other, but now he turns and really looks at me, still intense, but all traces of mockery gone.
“Hey, I’m sorry. That book, it’s not actually . . . I was just being a dick. And after what just happened to you, well, not cool.”
“That’s okay. What’s your book?”
“It’s the Big Book. The Alcoholics Anonymous book.”
“Oh. Are you . . . ?”
“I’m just reading it. For interest mostly, and because I know a lot of addicts, and because they had meetings in jail and it was something to do that was well regarded.”
“Ah.”
Jin joins us now, and sits down.
“I read a lot of stuff,” Tavik continues. “I like history, literature, a good mystery. But in terms of life . . . I like fixing things too. And being outside, it turns out. So, I dunno.”
“History professor, auto mechanic, engineer . . . Peak Wilderness guide?”
“These are your suggestions for what he’s going to be when he grows up?” Jin asks.
I shrug. “We’re just talking. Anyway, you could just go to university and figure it out while you’re there.”
Jin starts shaking her head.
“What?”
“Just . . . your privilege is showing,” she says. “No offense.”
“Um . . . okay, none taken . . . I guess . . . ?”
“I was on that track too, you know,” she says.
“What track?” I say.
“Applications to good schools where my tuition would be paid.”
“What . . . happened?”
“You know any Asian parents? Or students?”
“Students, of course. Lots.”
“Okay, how much do you see them, say, having fun, or doing a not-required extracurricular, versus studying?”
“I . . . I don’t know. Isn’t that a stereotype?”
“Sure, but there’s a reason for it. GPA is king. And you break your brain if you have to, but you get into a good school, and you go into engineering, or dentistry, or premed, because otherwise your parents will lose status.”
“Status with who?”
“With their other friends who have kids going into good moneymaking careers, and with family back in Hong Kong . . .”
“Ah. Right.”
“But in my case, it was way beyond that, because my dad is an abusive asshole, and totally obsessed with grades.”
“Oh,” I say, and she nods, visibly upset.
“Yeah,” she says. “I could take music, but only because it’s supposed to be good for math skills. I could do sports, but only because being athletic is good for the brain, and only until the athletics started taking too much time from my studying.”
“My mom . . . has almost the same attitude,” I say.
“She’s going to let you go, though,” Jin says. “To that school.”
“It comes with a pretty big price.”
“As did my so-called freedom,” Jin says. “As will Tavik’s schooling, and in his case, it’s literally.”
“Yeah, I can’t just do a general arts or science program,” Tavik says. “I like books and stuff, but I might be better in a trade. And there’s gotta be a plan.”
“Why?”
“Money, for one.”
“Right. I get it.”
“So, Jin,” he says, “you saying you cracked? Ran away? What sort of abuse are we talking about?”
“I sat up past midnight fifty-five nights in a row, being yelled at and quizzed by my father on properties of matter and atomic theory. He wouldn’t let me sleep. He hired someone to write my English essays for me, even though I actually loved English and wanted to write them myself. It was taking too much time from my STEM subjects, he said. Then I got caught for cheating—the essays, of course—and I was so humiliated, and it went on my record, and he blamed me, and I had to quit the volleyball team, which was basically the only good thing in my life, and I . . . It was too much. I left. So, yeah, I guess I cracked. And then, homelessness and my brief experiment with prostitution weren’t much fun either, so I cracked quite a few times.”
“Motherfucker,” Tavik says.
“My God,” I say.
“Yeah. So. That’s why I’m not going to be one of those people melting down out here,” she says. “This is the Plaza Hotel compared to living on the street. But enough about me. What are you writing in that book all the time, Ingrid?”
“Besides complaints about this trip?”
Jin smirks; Tavik laughs.
“It’s a journal. My mom bought me a huge stack of them, all different covers. But in it . . . it’s letters, mostly to her.”
“To your mom?” Jin says.
“Yep,” I say, hoping my tone conveys that’s all I want to say about it.
“You going to give it to her when you’re done?” Tavik asks.
I stare into the fire, swallow, shake my head. “No.”
“Why not?” Jin says.
“Why do you do it, then?” Tavik asks
“I . . . It’s a long story. It’s complicated.”
“So?” Tavik says.
And Jin just stares at me, like she’s issuing a dare.
“Not tonight.” I get up, shaking my head. “I’m way too tired. Nice chatting with you both, though.”
I resist the urge to run as I step out of the firelight, and so I hear Jin loud and clear as I’m walking away.
“Chicken.”
JUST LEAVE ME HERE
(Age Fifteen)
In addition to my mom being weird about the play, she and Andreas were having a problem—a fight, but a silent one. There’d been the rumble of late-night conversation after he got home, and strange tension, and she was taking sleeping pills, but still up all night, pacing some nights. At first I worried it was about me, but I got the feeling it was something else.
Normally I would have jumped in to help, or at least tried to find out what was going on. But for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to. If I got involved, it would take over, and I couldn’t afford that with the play about to go up.
Plus, had my trying to help ever actually helped? Maybe I put myself through hell worrying and fussing and it made no difference. In which case, the only thing I’d achieved was making myself feel terrible. Maybe enough was enough and maybe . . . maybe I could be happy, even when my mom wasn’t. A revolutionary thought.
And I was happy. I was living intensely, running on an energy I’d never tapped into before. I was full and vibrating—with music, with words, with Dorothy, with the heart-tripping breathlessness of Isaac, and the million tiny, secret moments happening between us.
We went for long walks when we had time between the end of school and rehearsal, drinking lattes and talking. Isaac had ideas about everything—his brain wheeled and darted from art to music to international politics, to science, ethics, psychology, even sports. He could see something in a store window or the byline of a newspaper article, connect the two, and then reel off three or four ways of looking at them. He could look at me and know immediately what mood I was in, and whether to try to make me laugh, or give me a hug, or both.
Like me, he tended to shy away from anything too deeply personal, to have no-go zones in terms of talking about his past, most particularly the years he’d spent being bullied. He didn’t have to say it; I just knew.
Isaac was many things all at once, was a person who could, like me, hold on to many contradictions, simultaneously. It’s not an easy way to be, because it means you live with paradoxes, with conflicts between things that are true and yet diametrically opposed. It means, sometimes, that you are the bridge between those things, and also the battleground.
So we talked about the world, but not ourselves. And then, in the theater, he would pull me behind curtains and into dim corners backstage, and run his hands up my back, and kiss me until I felt like I was full of liquid fire.
“You must be over your claustrophobia,” I murmured one time, between kisses.
“We’re not locked in anywhere,” he said. “No doors.”
“Mmm.”
“But hey, if you want to try a closet . . .”
“No, I’m fine like
this.”
We didn’t talk about “us” or what it meant. And we hadn’t told anyone, or let anyone see us holding hands or making out. Juno had given me a few inquiring looks, but she was too distracted by her most recent drama with Toff—which she had clearly created by purposely making him jealous—to really notice. Keeping it private for now felt right, felt necessary.
The morning of dress rehearsal, Mom and Andreas erupted into an actual shouting match over breakfast.
He was scanning the news online, and mentioned something about a medical breakthrough for Alzheimer’s. I have no idea why it set my mother off, but it did.
“Stop right now,” she said.
“Pardon me?” He looked up in surprise.
“I see what you’re doing.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, Andreas. I don’t want my life tinkered with! And, by the way, you are not a subtle as you think.”
“But, Margot-Sophia, let’s talk about this,” he said, either not reading the signs that persisting was a bad idea, or choosing to ignore them. “If you would only—”
“The subject is closed!” she exploded, and then burst into tears. “It’s closed and I won’t tolerate any more of these hints, any more of this campaign of yours.”
“I am simply . . . making . . . conversation over breakfast!” he protested, raising his voice too.
“No, you are trying, again, to make your point, and you’ve made your point multiple times, and my point is you are not listening to me! You are simply working your way up to trying again, and I said no already. No, no, no, no.”
“All right!”
“Because it hurts me! Every time, it hurts me, Andreas, and I don’t like being hurt and so then I get angry, so very angry . . . !”
I stood up, and they both looked at me as if just realizing I was there.
“What the hell is going on?” I said.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Andreas said.
“Is it a nothing I can do something about?” I asked.
“No,” they both said together.
“Fine. Look, I have to go to school. It’s a big week for me, and a big day today, and this problem you two are having . . . is stressing me out. Can you stop?”
Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined Page 19
