Cold Kiss

by Amy Garvey

  She’s rooting around in the fridge for something when Mom says, “Do you want a ride over to Becker’s?”

  I wonder if she knows how long it takes me to get there when I walk. Not because it’s far, but because I drag it out. Ryan and I trade off visiting Becker, but I hate it. “Nah, I’m good.”

  “If you’re sure.” She stands up and puts the last folded T-shirt on the top of the pile, and for a minute I want to bury my head on her shoulder, tell her I’m not sure, that I don’t want to go at all, that I need her to fix everything for me. But the time when I could have done that is long past.

  Instead, I let her ruffle my hair as she walks past me. “I think I’ll swing by and get Robin after practice, maybe head to the mall. You guys could use a couple of winter things, I bet. And we can get some lunch, too, Binny.”

  “Really?” Robin is beaming. She turns to set her water down on the counter and her grip on the soccer ball slips—for just a second, when she catches sight of it, it hangs there in midair like a wobbly little planet, and I can feel the air tighten, thick and heavy the way it feels before a thunderstorm.

  She blinks, surprised, and catches it before it hits the floor, and both of us look at Mom.

  Her lips are pressed tight together, but she doesn’t freak. Instead, she just says, “You’ll be done by one, right? I’ll pick you up.”

  Robin lets out a relieved breath and heads for the front door, calling over her shoulder, “See you!”

  And then it’s just me and Mom again. I glance out the window at the backyard, where the roof of the loft is just visible through the trees, and my stomach swoops low and fast as I picture the Danny in my dream.

  Between going to see Becker and checking on Danny, it’s hard to say which I want to do less.

  Becker’s mom answers the door when I ring the bell a few hours later. She always looks vaguely guilty to see me, pale eyes flicking everywhere but at my face. Becker was driving the car, after all.

  “George is upstairs.” She stands back to let me pass, and I can smell something on the stove in the kitchen, dark and spicy. Mrs. Becker used to work downtown at the health clinic, but she quit after the accident to take care of Becker. He’s the youngest, “her baby,” she told me the day I went to see him in the hospital, and now whenever I go to the house something is cooking.

  I don’t know where all the food goes, because both she and Becker look like they haven’t eaten in months.

  There’s a distant grunt when I knock on Becker’s door, just audible over the sound of the TV. I push the door open and squint. The shades are drawn and the room is nearly night-dark aside from the light of the big flat-screen TV mounted to the wall opposite the bed.

  Becker glances at me, and I can tell he’s high. He’s still on painkillers, even though I heard the doctors wanted him to stop. And I know that K.J. Simon sneaks him pot when he comes over. I can’t believe his parents can’t smell it—he doesn’t even bother to wheel himself toward the window when he smokes, and the grassy, burnt scent of weed is baked into the curtains and the comforter now.

  “Hey, Wren.” He’s sprawled on the bed, his mangled leg still braced and awkward. I take a couple of magazines off the easy chair in the corner and sit down as he struggles up on his elbows, wrenching himself into a sitting position.

  “What’re you watching?”

  “Nothing.” He picks up the remote and clicks the TV off, and I try not to cringe. It’s easier when he leaves it on, when we can spend an hour silently watching a stupid movie or guys on BMX bikes coming this close to breaking their necks.

  I was never really angry at him, although everyone assumed I would be. That’s what his mom thinks, I know, and what Becker thinks, too. He can’t look at me, either, unless he’s really wasted, and then he can’t stop talking, apologizing and crying and holding my hand.

  I hate those days.

  I should be furious with him. He bought the beer; he drove the car; he was speeding, laughing, not paying attention, drunk and goofing around like nothing in the world could hurt either him or Danny. But when I look at him now there’s nothing but a whistling emptiness in my chest.

  Becker’s always been the clown, and he could afford to be. He’s that kind of athletic good-looking, not as tall as Danny, and a little broader, but still pretty graceful. His parents have money, the kind that gets you into good schools even when you don’t have the best grades. He was always the one grabbing Danny and Ryan to cut afternoon classes and go drink beer up in the woods, or sneak into a movie.

  Now no one can say if he’ll ever walk again, at least without a crutch and a definite limp, even if he does get his act together and concentrate on physical therapy.

  He rubs his eyes and takes a deep breath like he’s working up to saying something, and I wish he wouldn’t. Mostly I just wish I could leave, but Becker’s my friend, too, and sometimes I feel bad, because I think I should feel worse. Becker lived through the accident, but life as he knows it is over.

  “How are you?” he says, the words slurring together a little bit.

  I shrug. “I should be asking you that.”

  He makes a dismissive noise and shakes his head. “The same, pretty much.”

  “Me too, I guess.”

  His face twists a little, and he doesn’t look at me when he says, “I’m so sorry, Wren. I just wish…”

  “Becker, don’t.” I can’t listen to it today. “Let’s watch something, okay?”

  He doesn’t answer me for a minute, and doesn’t look up from the rumpled mess of his blue plaid comforter, and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep, or if he’s just really high. But in a moment he lifts his head, and his eyes are glassy, bright.

  I turn to face the TV as he clicks it on, and we watch some behind-the-scenes thing on a metal band I’ve never heard of. I don’t care, though. It’s better than talking.

  And it’s a lot better than thinking about how neither one of us can let go, Becker of the boy he was before the accident, and me of the boy I lost. Holding on isn’t doing either of us any good, but it’s too late to change it now, for me anyway.

  He’s asleep when I look at him later, head drooping onto one shoulder, the skin under his eyes smudged dark and too thin. I turn off the TV when I leave, and I don’t wonder what he dreams.

  I stop at Bliss for a coffee on the way home, and I’m walking up Elm when Mom pulls up at the curb and honks. “Jump in,” she calls. She’s grinning, like this is the happiest accident ever, and I can’t think of a good excuse to refuse even with Danny still alone in the loft.

  We stop at the supermarket on the way home, and Robin proposes that we make enchiladas together, which we haven’t done in ages. She’s all lit up, flushed and bubbling over in ways I’m not sure she even notices—the fire Mom sets in the fireplace flickering higher when Robin sits down in front of it, the dented bell peppers firming up, glossy again, when she takes them out of the grocery bag. She came home with three new shirts and a pair of earrings, and it’s sweet, how happy an afternoon at the mall with Mom makes her.

  We’re just sitting down to eat when my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket. Mom lifts an eyebrow but doesn’t protest, even though cell phones are forbidden at the table when we’re sitting down to a meal all together. We’re having a good evening, and it makes me realize how long it’s been since we’ve done this kind of thing.

  I pull out my phone and glance at the screen: Jess. Great.

  We talked after school on Friday, if you can call it that. It felt like some sort of bizarre peace negotiation, both of us mumbling we were sorry without really looking at each other, and Darcia standing in as referee, prodding us to discuss my plan for a sleepover. But I could tell Jess saw how happy Dar was, and since I’d been careful to steer clear of Gabriel all day, she didn’t have anything to call me on.

  Of course, after the way I’d blown Gabriel off Thursday afternoon, he barely looked at me in class anyway, much less came to find me at lunch. It stung, like the
shock of cold water in your lungs.

  “Hey,” I say when I answer my phone now, trying to sound as normal as possible. As far as Mom knows, Jess and I spend as much time together as ever, even if it’s not at our house.

  “Hey,” Jess says back, and there’s silence for a minute, a weird stalemate. She said she’d be busy most of Saturday, but that she’d call today. Now she has, and without Darcia here to mediate, I’m not sure what to say. Clearly, neither is Jess.

  But Mom is looking at me as she bites into a piece of pepper, and I scramble.

  “We’re eating dinner.”

  There’s another brief silence before Jess says slowly, “Okay. Um. So what’s the deal with Friday?”

  I can picture her in her room, on the bed on her back, knees bent as she stares at the ceiling. It’s a big room, bigger than either Dar’s or mine, but it’s a bigger house, too. Jess’s mom works in the art department of an advertising agency, and her dad is a lawyer on Wall Street, and Jess and her older brother, Matt, are the only kids.

  They’re like a TV family, except without the funny next-door neighbor or the weird uncle, and they’re so normal and nice to one another, it’s almost boring. Every once in a while, I wonder if one day we’ll find out her dad is really an ax murderer or her mom snorts coke and has affairs with the pool guy. They actually have a pool, so that part makes a sort of sense.

  It makes me wonder what my life would be like if Dad hadn’t left. If he and Mom would still be as stupid in love as they were when I was a kid, the way Jess’s parents are. If anything would have changed—my power, dating Danny—because he was still around.

  “Um, what about it?” I say, hoping she didn’t hear the demented squeak in my voice.

  Jess sighs. “Like … God, I don’t know, Wren. We haven’t seen you in forever, and now we’re having some shiny happy sleepover like everything’s cool? It’s random.”

  She’s right, it’s bizarre, and it’s all my fault that it is, but it still twists my heart into a hard little knot to hear her say it.

  And what am I supposed to say, here at the dinner table with Robin sitting next to me, chattering to Mom about some werewolf movie she wants to see, and Mom glancing at me every couple of seconds, her chin propped on her fist?

  “Look, if you don’t want to come over,” I say, turning sideways a little bit and lowering my voice, “just say so. I mean, I thought … I don’t know what I thought.”

  Jess sighs again, a gust of weariness.

  “No, I want to. I just hate that we’re … I don’t know. Are we fighting? I don’t even know anymore.”

  “We’re not fighting.” I know Mom can hear me, even though I’m speaking as softly as I can. “We don’t have to, anyway.”

  “Did you ask your mom about Friday yet? Is it okay?”

  It used to be okay all the time. Mom’s always happy for Jess and Dar to come over—she never minds if I’m at one of their houses, but she loves it when I have friends here. To keep an eye on me? Maybe. Sometimes I think she just likes the noise, the extra life in the house.

  “No, but I will. You know she won’t care,” I say, and grunt when Robin elbows me in the ribs as she bends down to get something she dropped.

  “Okay.” She doesn’t sound entirely convinced, and now Mom is frowning at me. Robin gets up to clear her plate, so it’s time to wrap this up.

  “I’ll call you later,” I tell Jess. “I have to go.”

  “Well, I’ll be here, wrestling Finch’s trig problems into submission. If I don’t answer, assume I’m comatose.”

  She sounds a little more like herself then, and I grin as I say good-bye. Maybe this will work. Maybe I’m panicking for nothing.

  Then I catch sight of Mom’s suspicious expression. Maybe not.

  “Who was that?” she asks as I dig into my enchilada again, and she runs a finger around the rim of her mug.

  “Just Jess.”

  “And what won’t I care about?” She tilts her head, waiting, and I take the plunge.

  “Jess and Darcia sleeping over on Friday night.”

  Robin’s clattering something in the sink, and in the living room the fire is still crackling and the TV is on, but for a second it’s completely silent, just the two of us, eyes locked. She knows something is up, she’s known for months, but she doesn’t know what, and this is just part of it. No matter what I’ve told her about hanging out with Darcia or going downtown with Jess, they haven’t been at the house since shortly after Danny died.

  Like I said, she’s not stupid.

  Still, she simply blinks as she says, “Of course. They’re more than welcome, you know that.”

  My heart thumps back into rhythm then, and Robin says, “Mom, you got ice cream! Awesome.”

  I snort, and Mom smiles and gets up. She leans down to press her head to mine as she clears her plate. I lean into the clean, warm-cotton scent of her, and pretend that it’s all going to be just that easy.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT’S NEARLY MIDNIGHT BEFORE I CAN GET OUT to the loft. Where was I going to say I was going at eight on a Sunday night, once dinner was cleaned up and we’d stuffed ourselves with mint chocolate chip and butter pecan? Nowhere, of course. So I pulled out my chemistry book and studied while Robin watched some ridiculous movie and Mom went over the schedules for the salon.

  The cat darts between my legs now when I open the back door, and I hiss at him to come back. He pauses mid-sprint and looks at me, tail twitching, and then takes off again. I sigh and follow him, taking care not to let the screen door slam.

  It’s freezing out, and I hunch into my hoodie as I run across the backyard. Everything sounds too loud in the dead calm of the hour, and I wince every time my foot snaps a twig. The side door to the garage wheezes on its ancient hinges when I open it, and I swallow hard. Mrs. Petrelli is asleep in the house, and even if she isn’t, she has to be way too deaf at her age to hear it.

  Danny isn’t, though. He grabs me when I clear the top step, and muffles my startled scream with one hand. He’s no warmer than it is outside, and the smooth skin of his palm is too earthy, dark.

  Dead.

  I wrestle out of his grasp when I can breathe again, and he stumbles back toward the bed.

  “Wren, Wren, where were you? Wren.”

  If I close my eyes, I can see him banging his head against the wall, smell the hot copper of the blood.

  “I’m here,” I tell him, and sit down abruptly on one of the wooden crates. “I’m right here, it’s okay.”

  “Wren.” He practically vaults forward, landing on his knees in front of me, and lays his head in my lap. “You weren’t here. You weren’t here for so long.”

  I touch his head, spreading my fingers in his hair. It’s so dry, so cool, dark straw now. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and my voice shakes as I make myself stroke his head. “I couldn’t help it.”

  “I need you here, Wren.” He shrugs away from my hand and lifts his head to look at me. His fingers dig into my thighs, ten distinct points of pressure. “I need you. When you’re not here, I don’t … I can’t think. I don’t know what to do and I can’t … I can’t think, Wren.”

  The hair on the back of my neck prickles, and I shut my eyes again. I can’t look at his face, his mouth twisted and his brow knotted, his cheeks pale, and so, so cold.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I whisper, and try not to flinch when his palm rests against my face, his thumb lightly tracing my cheekbone. “I didn’t mean to.”

  I tell him stories for a while, lying on the mattress with him, his head cradled on my chest. I’ve pulled up the blankets, but it doesn’t matter. The chill is on him, in him, and he’s pressed up against me. My teeth are chattering, but if he notices, he doesn’t say anything.

  He loves this, but I have to be careful. I try to talk only about us, times when we were alone together, because I don’t want to remind him of Ryan or Becker, or his parents and his brother and sister. I can’t answer the questions he asks
about them, not honestly anyway.

  He never used to ask. At first, all he wanted was me, as if he’d woken up in some dream where the two of us were all there was, all he needed. Even the loft didn’t confuse him much, as long as I was there.

  But the longer he’s alone, the more the dream fades.

  “Remember the first time we went into the city?”

  He nods, calmer now, and his hand rests easy on my hip. We’ve been at this for an hour, and I dread the thought of my alarm in the morning.

  “God, it was so cold that day, even for February,” I whisper, and shiver a little. It doesn’t feel much warmer right now.

  I describe it all for him, letting my eyes drift shut as I lay my head back and remember it. Bundled together into the seat, sharing earbuds and a coffee while the train rattled along the tracks. Changing at Newark and running down the long ramp to the PATH, which took us into the Village. We’d stopped every two blocks for coffee, it seemed—it was a blue-cold day, the wind biting into our cheeks, and we didn’t have anything specific to do anyway. We were simply roaming, playing, and it became a game to spot another coffee shop first and race toward it on the crowded streets.

  “My favorite was that one on MacDougal,” I say with a smile. “The one with the tin ceiling and all those old pictures of people in furs and weird hats. That place had the best croissants.”

  He makes a vague humming noise, in agreement, I think, and I know he won’t fall asleep, but he’s as relaxed as he ever gets now.

  “And then we went to Bleecker Bob’s and that comic-book store, remember? Oh, and the thrift store where you bought me that necklace, the one with the owl in front of the moon.”

  “I remember the moon.” He sounds faraway, preoccupied, and his body is tense again, solid marble.

  “Yeah, the owl is sitting on a branch with the full moon behind it,” I tell him, and scritch idly through the hair at his nape. “It’s pretty. I’ll wear it tomorrow.”

  “I remember the moon,” he says again, and sits up. The blankets rustle in his wake, and I shiver. “And the candles. There were candles.”