Hurricane Kiss

by Deborah Blumenthal

  “What?”

  “Take a ballpoint pen and poke holes in his stories. I’d stab them again and again with the pen so when I finished you couldn’t read a word. I hated him so much. He started over and pretended that Ethan and I didn’t exist. No child support, no anything at first. At least until my mom hired a lawyer and went after him.”

  “Jesus. Deadbeat dad.”

  “Yeah. So I know what living with one parent is like. It’s a job one person can’t ace. At least not if you need to feed your kids on one salary and pay rent and you’re paying a lawyer to get child support.” I shake my head back and forth, lost in the past. “Don’t tell.”

  “I wouldn’t—”

  “—I don’t tell,” I say, finishing my thought. “I don’t tell … anyone. I never have.”

  He looks at me questioningly.

  “But you know the weirdest thing?”

  “What?”

  “For some crazy reason I still feel like I did something wrong. Like it was my fault in some way that things weren’t right in the family.”

  “Kids always blame themselves,” he says.

  “But I still do. I think that maybe if I had been different … Am I crazy?”

  River shakes his head. “You can’t be.”

  “Why?”

  He looks at me with his haunted eyes and his face softens. “Because I’ve got the monopoly on crazy.”

  I’m glad he knows about my family. The pain has changed. It’s not as deep anymore. I wonder if that’s the way it is for my mom too. I never asked her. Now who knew if I’d ever have the chance.

  “What about your mom?” Definitely need to change the subject. “Did she work after you were born?”

  He shifts on the mat and blows out a breath. He sees what I’m doing, but he goes along. “She gave up acting, but she wrote screenplays. I think he was jealous. He didn’t fit into her world of movie people. But mostly it was because it took time away from him. When he got promoted he convinced her to give it up. ‘I can buy you whatever you want,’ he told her.” He grunts. “What she wanted was a life of her own. Being Mrs. Harlan Daughtry didn’t cut it for her. And then when he started in the oil business, there were dinners she had to go to with him and lunches …”

  My mom would hate that kind of life, I think.

  “He thought that should have been enough for her,” River says, going on like he can’t stop. “It was like he was living a hundred years ago. Then one day,” he says, lying on his back, eyes closed, “she got sick.”

  RIVER

  Even through the closet walls we hear the explosive sounds. It’s like the end of the goddamn world outside. It’s so sick and morbid, I know, but I think of her dead, underground. What would happen if she had been buried here? Maybe her coffin would have floated up out of the ground, like she had no real place in the world anymore. No place to rest, ever.

  “What happened?” Jillian asks.

  I go back to when it started.

  “She was in bed when I got home one day. ‘I just have to rest, I’ll be fine,’ she said. Pretty much from that afternoon on, she was in bed more than out of it.

  “She went to doctor after doctor. Then she started going to the hospital for treatments. Weeks later, whenever she got out of bed, there would be clumps of hair on her pillow. I didn’t understand what that meant. She looked at me with this pitying expression. She knew what was ahead for me and she was powerless to stop it.”

  How do you deal knowing that you’re leaving your kid to grow up without you, with just one parent—the one who doesn’t know how to do the job? The one who can’t replace you?

  I look at Jillian and think of her story. Some parents choose to abandon you. Others are helpless to stop it.

  “Everything in my world changed after that,” I say. “What did I care about football when my mom was dying? But my dad needed the Friday night lights more than ever.”

  JILLIAN

  The water continues to seep under the door, rising higher on the mats. River has gone quiet. He’s not thinking about the storm. At least not the one outside.

  “But after you moved, you didn’t have to keep playing football. Why didn’t you stop when you moved here?”

  He exhales hard. “As soon as I told my coach in LA that I was moving, he contacted Briggs. He thought he was doing me a favor. Day one Briggs wanted to see me. It was like it was already decided.” River pauses. “I’m so sick of going over this,” he says. He rolls over.

  Minutes go by. I turn toward him. Is he just breathing softly, or is he asleep?

  “You still up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “About the first time I saw you,” he says.

  “When was that?”

  “The day we were moving in.”

  “I saw you, but I didn’t think you saw me,” I say.

  “I saw you,” he insists.

  “When?”

  “I was helping my dad carry boxes into the house. You were getting something out of your car and glanced over at me, but I was busy trying not to drop a shitload of dishes.”

  “Not cool.”

  “Right.” He stops.

  “What?” I say.

  “What what?”

  I swallow. “What did you think?”

  “I noticed your hair,” River says. “And your blouse.”

  “Why?”

  “Your hair was down on your shoulders. It looked red gold glinting in the sun, like you were painted by some French artist like Renoir.”

  I’m glad he can’t see me blushing.

  “You were wearing a pale pink blouse and blue shorts,” he says. “I thought … you weren’t real.”

  “I remember your first day in school when you got lost and couldn’t find the office.”

  “I hate first days,” he says. “You saved me.”

  “It’s funny that we’re neighbors.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. The boy next door, that kind of thing.”

  “You had it bad for me,” River says.

  “What?”

  He laughs. “I’m kidding.”

  Flashback to “before” mode. His easy sense of humor, his guard down. How long before he slips back into his full-body armor? We’re in an airless closet with a locked door and a flooded floor. Crazy, but it feels safe here. If only the real world had a safe room. But reality check, unless the storm stops, the building is going to get slammed even worse. And unless Danielle kills us, we’ll be forced to climb up somewhere because the first floor will be flooded out.

  I turn on my side, narrowing the space between us. River turns, his back to me.

  I don’t know how I get the nerve to ask. “Remember … the night … of the full-moon picnic?”

  “Yeah?”

  I hesitate. “You know the kiss thing.”

  “So?” he says, finally.

  “I was just …”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What?” he insists. “You can’t just—”

  “OK, whatever. Did you pick me because I just happened to be there, or did you look for me?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I just wondered.”

  He exhales. “I had to kiss someone,” he says, an edge to his voice. “You were there, OK? It was convenient. I’m sorry.”

  “Fine, OK, never mind.” I turn away, closing my eyes.

  “Now you’re mad?”

  “I’m not mad. Why would I be?”

  “You have a boyfriend.”

  “His name is Aidan. And it’s not like you wasted any time finding someone.”

  “It wasn’t exactly like that.”

  “It sure looked that way.
”

  “Christ, do you know her?”

  “Know her? No one knows Lexie. She has no friends.”

  “She had this shitty childhood, so she’s needy and hooks onto guys …”

  “You must have liked that then, easy conquest.” Why is he making me so mad?

  He clears his throat and turns away. “No,” he says, “I didn’t like it.”

  Liked wasn’t a word you’d use in the same sentence as Lexie. And ever since it got around that I was the one River kissed before her, she had it in for me.

  I remember the school fund-raiser. I went with Aidan. Lexie went with River. Whenever Aidan and River were in the same room you could almost feel the tension. But River was cool that night, especially around me. He even came over to me to suggest a story for the paper on the time commitment you had to make to join a team.

  “Why don’t you write it?” I said.

  He laughed. “No time, that’s the point.”

  Lexie whispered something in his ear and pulled him away. Later she followed me into the bathroom. She was waiting at the sink brushing her long, dark hair when I came out. She stopped, her hands on her hips, her red fingernails ready like weapons. She turned to me as I began to wash my hands.

  “Don’t come on to him,” she said, her mouth in a hard line. “He’s mine. We’re almost engaged.”

  “Who?”

  “You know who,” she said, grabbing my upper arm and squeezing it. “Your next-door neighbor.”

  “Why would I come on to him? I’m seeing Aidan,” I said, jerking my arm back, trying to break free of her grip. Only she tightened it.

  “Maybe one boyfriend isn’t enough for you.”

  “Your mind works that way, mine doesn’t.”

  “Remember what I said,” she said, finally letting go. “Because if you don’t, you will pay.”

  When I got out of school that day, one of my tires was slashed. I never told anyone.

  It was so clear now. He saw me first at the picnic so he used the line about the kiss on me, before he got to Lexie. What a laugh it must have been for him to get over on his next-door neighbor. After Aidan found us, River moved on to someone who offered him a lot more than a pathetic kiss. Not that it matters now. Things like me liking him or him liking me don’t matter at all when you’re stuck in an airless, filthy closet in a building with a smashed-in roof that will probably collapse. Screw feelings and stupid disappointments, because what we have to look forward to is either getting crushed to death if the building crashes down or drowning because we can’t escape. Either way, no one will look for us because everyone would assume the school was vacant.

  So after a week, maybe more, they’ll find our dead, decomposed bodies.

  Or they won’t.

  And all anyone will remember is that there were unanswered questions about the two kids who thought they could get out of a car in the middle of the freeway and survive a hurricane by running directly into it instead of getting the hell away. Two stupid kids who thought they were smarter than everyone else.

  Chapter 25

  JILLIAN

  It feels like there’s no air left in the closet. It’s claustrophobic. And broiling. I sit up and then lie back down. I turn and look at River. He has a reason to be screwed up. He was locked away, awful things happened to him. But me? Why do I obsess over everything? Why do I always end up a victim, a loser? It was stupid to bring up the kiss. I finally knew the truth, and it only made things worse.

  We lie next to each other breathing the same air, but in separate universes, captive to Danielle. “River?”

  “What?”

  “You know what’s so strange?

  “What?”

  “It feels like you and I are the only two people in the world now. We can’t reach anyone else. How scary is that?”

  “Nothing new to me.”

  “But this is different. I mean, before everything happened. You didn’t feel like that then, did you?”

  He turns from one side to the other. “Nothing stays the same.”

  I sit up and start rubbing my head. I’m getting a migraine. I search in my backpack for the aspirin tin. Half a pill. Why didn’t I check before? I swallow it with a sip from my last box of juice. “God, my head is splitting. There’s no air in here.”

  No answer. I lean forward and start to rub it, but it doesn’t help.

  “C’mere,” River says.

  “What?”

  “Move over, here.”

  He edges over on his mat, making room for me, and I slide over. He sits up, leaning back on his heels. I move closer and he takes my head in his hands.

  “Lie back,” he says, lowering my head to the top of his thighs. His fingers slide through my hair and he massages my scalp, making slow, deliberate circles, around and around in a hypnotic rhythm. He tugs gently on my hair, slowly taking it from side to side, and then up and down getting the blood flowing. My scalp tingles, and I sink against him.

  “Where did you learn that?”

  “You like it?”

  I nod. It’s all I can do.

  He slips a hand under the back of my neck, slowly rubbing the tight muscles, then his touch grows firmer, using strokes that fire every nerve in my body. I exhale, feeling myself sink back against him even more. I can’t help it. Then, just as quickly, I want to sit up and take it back. I can’t let him know what he’s doing to me, how I feel inside, but it’s too late. My body won’t stay still. A deep ache of longing electrifies me.

  He stops.

  Neither of us moves. The storm outside seems to have quieted, the raging wind and hammering rain replaced by a wide expanse of eerie silence. The only sounds are the two of us drawing in breaths, or trying to, all the tightness inside me unraveling, turning to need. He winds his fingers into my hair, gripping it tightly, locking me in place. I’m captive, his prisoner. His face is so close I can feel it when he exhales. My lips part. I want to cry out, to call his name.

  My heart slams so hard I’m sure he hears it. I stare up at his eyes, remembering his mouth on mine, his lips teasing the skin on my neck, and I wait. Seconds go by. Why is he doing this to me? What does he want?

  His fingers loosen abruptly and he exhales, slowly sliding back, separating himself from me. It feels like one of his knives has hit dead center inside my heart.

  “Get some sleep,” he says, in a hoarse whisper.

  No! I want to cry. I was so wrong. He feels nothing for me. He was just being nice for a change, trying to relieve my headache. Or maybe he was just testing virginal me to amuse himself. I move back to my mat and curl up in a fetal position.

  RIVER

  Something about touching her hair, her neck, the softness of her skin as she was stretched out in front of me. I nearly lost it. Another second and I would have crushed her under me. I would have been all over her and then opened myself up, telling her everything I keep inside me.

  But I woke from the dream and caught myself. I remembered who I am. It was my fault to start. I shouldn’t have touched her. I can’t be that person again. I don’t have anything to give anymore. She deserves someone who’s in one piece, who doesn’t exist on a diet of pills. I double over and try to push everything out of my head, every thought, every urge, the pain of wanting. Pretending she’s not near me, pretending that the soft gasps I hear are not the sounds of her crying.

  JILLIAN

  I should stop, but I can’t. I keep replaying it, only this time the tears come. His hands on my scalp. My nakedness to his touch. His fingers in my hair, so gentle at first, then stronger, as if he were taking possession of me.

  But that was crazy me. He stopped; he didn’t have to. He moved away. He’s asleep now, his thoughts on anything but me.

  Why didn’t I ever see things for what they were? Why did I turn a five-minute scalp massage into a de
sperate declaration of love that I hoped would end up with him kissing me? I was 180 degrees from reality, no surprise.

  I should be thinking about Aidan, anyway. I could only imagine what he’d be thinking if he knew where I was right now.

  Then it dawns on me. I never felt this way with Aidan, and I never will. I’ve been lying to myself all along.

  If you love someone at first sight, it usually goes downhill from there, I’d told Kelly. That was laughable, and she knew it.

  Aidan is dependable. He wouldn’t abandon me. But dependable isn’t a synonym for love. And it isn’t a substitute. It’s just a poor excuse.

  I reach for my diary in my back pocket. But it’s not there anymore. It must have slipped out somewhere, all my secrets probably drowned in floodwater now. But that’s OK. If we make it out of here, I’ll start another diary going forward. It will hold the story of after, not before. Life lived outside my head, not in it, because Danielle is changing my thinking about everything. She’s like the car coming toward you, going the wrong way on a one-way street. If you survive and live to talk about it, it makes you vow to live differently. In the sun, instead of the shadows. Not hiding in your head.

  I think about magazine articles that ask what you would do if you knew you had only twenty-four hours left to live. Daredevil stuff like ice climbing or coasting down a mountain on a luge? Skydiving? Would you forget your fears and go out into the world to explore it, or sit tight at home as the minutes ticked by, popping Xanax and crying to your friends on the phone?

  I think about River’s mom. I read about other people who went through the same thing. Some actually said they felt thankful because living on the edge elevated every moment of life they had left and changed the way they viewed the world. Trivial annoyances fell away and they rejoiced in every singular waking moment with a new appreciation.

  Suddenly I’m obsessed with last chances and saying things while there’s still time. What if River was the last person I’d see for the rest of my life?