“This isn’t living.” She waved the papers around, crumpling them in her grip. “It’s a hobby.”
“Stop! My papers!”
“I want my sister back.”
I froze, her words so heavy they almost knocked me over.
Her cheeks turned red—whether from embarrassment or exertion or anger, I wasn’t sure. She dropped the papers on my desk and stalked out of the room.
A sob rose in my throat. Stuffing it down, I picked up my papers, smoothed out the edges, and returned them to their correct slots. Mae’s words ran over and over in my mind, a roar of accusation.
And the tickets to the museum were still in my pocket. Waiting. Proving her right. I was still waiting to hear from Jackson, still hoping he’d want to go.
But I hadn’t heard anything from him.
54.
JACKSON
Sitting in my car across the street from my dad’s house, I held my mother’s worn jacket on my lap. It smelled musty.
It was my fault for not bringing a few things with me when I’d left home the first time. But I’d been in a hurry. And after that…going back wasn’t an option. Until now.
I had to get this dealt with so I didn’t get in trouble for living on my own. Once I knew Dad wasn’t going to tell anyone, that our secret was safe—or safe enough, now that Zoe and her family knew—I could get on with my life. And he could get on with his.
Stepping out of the car, I stared at the front door. Maybe he wasn’t home. Then I’d have a few more hours.
But part of me, the part that was tired and aching and longing to go sit with Zoe in her safe room, wanted this to be done for good.
I walked up the front steps and knocked on the door. It opened almost right away, my dad standing with a pair of glasses on and looking nothing like the day I’d left.
“Jackson. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“This is your house, too. You don’t have to knock. I didn’t change the locks, just in case, but—” Dad broke off, shaking his head. “I was wondering when you were going to come up here. You’ve been sitting out there for almost an hour.”
I had. In that hour, I’d almost texted Zoe three times, but I didn’t know what to say to her.
“You want to come in?” he asked.
His jeans hung on his frame, but he looked clean. Healthy for the most part. His eyes weren’t red rimmed like they had often been in the past. He even looked rested.
“I’m still deciding.” My feet were glued to the porch. What was I supposed to do? This was the moment to fix it all—or to end it.
I needed to do something. Zoe’s parents knew about my dad, and Zoe knew about me being homeless. If I didn’t fix this, everything—my future, especially—could go wrong.
“I…went to visit your mom,” Dad said. “In fact, I go a lot to bring her flowers.”
The daisies at her gravesite flashed through my mind. My dad had been the one who brought the flowers? He’d remembered how much she loved daisies?
Dad rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s like…it’s like she’s closer to me when I go. Like I can hear her talking to me. Telling me how hard this was for you, but that I still have to try. I…I’d really like it if you came in for a bit to talk.”
Struck silent, I followed him numbly into the house.
“You want something to drink?” Dad asked.
I shadowed him to the kitchen, so distracted by the cleanliness of the living room, I almost ran into the wall. It looked like he’d hired a maid to come in and straighten it all up, though I doubted he had money for that.
“I don’t have much,” Dad said, peering into the fridge. “A soda. Orange juice. Water.”
“Water is fine.”
He filled a glass with ice and tap water. I resisted the urge to hold the glass up to the light to make sure it was clean. If the rest of the kitchen was any indication, it had been washed recently.
Dad gestured to the round table by the window. “I could fix you a sandwich, or there’s some leftover lasagna Cathy brought over.”
“Cathy? You mean Mom’s friend Cathy?” I vaguely remembered a chubby blonde who always smiled and brought me suckers.
I sat at the table. Dad joined me, but he couldn’t seem to sit still. It looked like he was nervous.
“Cathy. Right. She was here when you…dropped by the other day.”
“That was Cathy?”
Dad smiled, tapping his fingers on the table. “Yeah, she looks different. Lost a lot of weight. She…she wanted to help.”
“Help?” I frowned. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Dad stood, walking to the pantry. He pulled out a bag of pretzels and set them on the table between us. “Yes, help. I—I needed to clean out the house.”
“Mom’s stuff.”
“No. I mean, not just that.” Dad pulled off his glasses and rubbed his hands over his face. “It’s…” He sat again. “Everything else.”
The alcohol. All the bottles in the trash.
“I still had everything in the house, and it seemed smart to get rid of it. I—I’ve been sober for six months, but I thought it might be a good idea to have someone here when I threw it all out. So I wouldn’t be tempted. I should have done it a long time ago. I was supposed to, but it was my own kind of test. Like…if I could be around all that shit and still say no, then…I was making progress.”
His words sank in. It was true that most of the bottles in the trash didn’t seem to be open or weren’t missing much, but that didn’t mean anything. He could have gone out afterward and gotten more. He could have more in the house right now.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. I was hoping it would all be out of here if you—you know, if you decided to come back.”
He opened the bag of pretzels and pushed them in my direction. “I can make you that sandwich, too, if you want.”
“I’m fine. I can eat later.”
Or I’d take the bag of pretzels with me. That would be good enough for the rest of the evening.
“Uh…” Dad tapped his fingers again, seemed to realize what he was doing, and set his hands flat on the table. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Not—eating. I mean…” He looked at me, a mirror image of hazel eyes behind identical glasses. “I’ve been calling because I wanted to see if you wanted to come home.”
I laughed, but it came out rough. Short. Painful. “Come home? Why would I do that?”
“Because I—I have a plan. I got a job.”
“You got a job?” He’d said that in his voicemail, hadn’t he? But I hadn’t believed it.
“It’s nights right now because I’ve only been there for five months. But they said maybe after a year I could switch to daytime. Anyway, nights work better because I make more. So I can—you know, pay the bills. Catch up. I’ve been saving money for you, for college.”
“You paid my insurance payment. And my phone bill.”
Dad nodded. “That’s my job.”
“It hasn’t been for the last two years.”
“I wasn’t doing my job for the last two years, and I’m sorry for that. Your mom—” His hands curled slowly into fists and then relaxed. “She always took care of that. And—and, once she was gone, I was lost. It—I couldn’t deal. It’s not an excuse. Really. Just…that’s what it was. And it was my fault. You dealt. I didn’t. And I’m sorry. I couldn’t even be there when she died. I let her down.” His eyes lowered to the table. “I let you down.”
His words made my throat ache. I grabbed a handful of pretzels to give myself something to do. This wasn’t Dad. No, it wasn’t the dad from after my mother’s death. It was the guy I knew when I was younger. Sure, he didn’t play with me a lot or take me places, but he was there.
And now he was here. Trying.
“I’ve been working on fixing things, though,” Dad said, standing before I could swallow my bite. “Here, I’ll show you.”
He vanished down the hallway,
so I followed along to the opposite side of the house, where his bedroom and mine both were. Bags sat in a pile in the spare room, and he pointed to them. “Your mom’s stuff. Not all of it, because there were things I wanted to keep. But Cathy said maybe it was time to donate some of her clothes. We only got rid of the stuff that was too old or holey to fix.”
Like the jacket I had in my car.
“I kept the rest. I thought you might want to look through it or whatever.” Dad shoved a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want to get rid of it or donate it or anything until you had a say.”
Words jammed in the back of my mouth. Then Dad was turning again, walking to my room.
He gripped the handle on the door. “I fixed the lock,” he said, looking embarrassed. It was the lock he’d broken the day I’d stolen all his Johnny Walker Black and hidden it under my bed, sick of him getting drunk and yelling about Mom. “So you can have privacy or whatever.”
I scanned the small space. It looked just like I had left it, but cleaner. And there was a poster of the solar system above my bed.
Dad ducked his head. “I know you’re not a kid anymore. But I found it in the crawl space, and it was one your mom had bought. I can take it down.”
“No,” I said, so quietly I wasn’t sure he heard me. “You can leave it up.”
“Yeah.” Dad ran a hand through his hair again. “So…you’re almost eighteen now.”
This summer. By the Fourth of July, I’d be legal. I wouldn’t have to pretend I wasn’t homeless when I was.
“You don’t have to stay here, but I want you to. I want to…fix this, Jackson.” Dad scuffed the toe of one of his boots on the other one. “I opened an account for you for college or whatever you want. So once you turn eighteen, if this doesn’t work out—or…or before that—you can take the money and do what you need to. But I hope it doesn’t come to that. It’s about time I got my shit together.”
He was right. It was about time. And what was I supposed to say to that?
“You don’t have to pay for college,” I mumbled. I’d figure it out. I was already figuring it out.
“Of course I do. It’s my job.”
I didn’t answer.
“Jackson. You’re supposed to have this opportunity. I’m working hard—extra shifts to save money. You deserve this chance. And if it’s not what you want, I’ll support you. If you want to work at Wal-Mart, that’s fine. You can stay here while you figure out what you want to do. But…I saw your grades. You’re kind of at the top of your class.”
“Kind of,” I said with a laugh.
Dad joined with a short laugh of his own. “Not kind of. You are at the top of your class. It’s—God, you’re just like your mom. She would have wanted you to go to college. Or do whatever it is that makes you happy. And it’s my job to help give you that chance.”
“Since when do you talk so much?” I asked gruffly, feeling sentimental and awkward and surprised all at the same time.
“Yeah.” Dad chuckled. “It’s the meetings. They’re like, ‘Don’t hold back your feelings. You need to be able to talk. You can’t build up anger or resentment.’ All that…emotional sh—stuff. It’s—it’s strange. But they helped me get a job, and sometimes I eat other things besides TV dinners, so I’m not totally defective.”
I blew out another laugh. “Sounds like.”
“You can decide,” Dad said. “You don’t have to stay here. I won’t say a word if you don’t. I’ll pretend everything’s fine. But I want you to give it a try. For yourself. For me.” He shrugged. “For your mom.”
When I hesitated, Dad tried again. “We could get the internet.”
Which made me laugh again. We stood there awkwardly for several seconds. I didn’t know what to say, only that I needed time. Dad seemed to sense that.
“So, listen, I have to get to work soon. You’re welcome to stay here, think about things, find some grub in the kitchen. I’m off at one in the morning, so if you’d rather not be here when I get back, well…that’s when I’ll be here.”
He almost looked like he was going to step forward for a hug, so I nodded and said, “Thanks.”
Dad stepped back, putting his hands in his pockets. “Sure.” He turned to the hallway, and then back. “So…I’m glad you’re here.”
I waited until he left to say, “Me, too.”
55.
BlackKNIGHT: I saw your messages. I want to see your new chess move. Actually, I’d really just like to talk to you…
56.
ZOE
Jackson texted me Friday afternoon, and I was so relieved to hear from him I stopped thinking about Mae’s words and the waves of hurt that kept rolling over me. I just needed to know he was okay.
When he asked if he could drop by, I said it was fine and waited in my study. I turned in a complete circle in my now paper-free room. I couldn’t tell if it looked clean and new or sad and lonely. Or maybe a mix—just like how I felt inside.
I gathered my school papers and turned on the computer in case he wanted to work on math or physics. My stomach was coiled too tightly to think about either of those things, but that’s what we were supposed to be doing. Jackson was my tutor, and at least that was normal. Something that could distract us from the mess that was going on.
But when I heard the elevator and, soon after, Jackson walked into the room, those thoughts immediately vanished.
“Are you okay?” I asked, my voice coming out so soft it was a whisper.
He smiled, a genuine smile that relaxed every bone in my body. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not in trouble, are you? I mean, my parents didn’t say anything to anyone—but still—”
“Everything is fine…” He ventured a step closer, but his words trailed off when he saw the empty wall.
His gaze traveled to the ceiling and then the wall again, as if he couldn’t understand what it was about the room that looked so different.
“Your galaxy.” His eyes met mine, a flash of conflict traveling through them. “You took it down.”
I nodded, not sure what to say. It had felt like it was time, but now it just seemed rash. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t saved some of it. Or talked to Jackson first. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? I shouldn’t have to talk to Jackson or Mae or Gina about everything I did. I needed to make choices and deal with consequences on my own.
Mae was right. This wasn’t living.
Jackson looked like he was choosing his words carefully. I stayed where I was, though my whole body itched to reach out to him.
“I talked to my dad,” he said finally.
“You did?”
“Yesterday. It needed to be done.”
I blew out a breath. “I’m glad.”
He looked at the bare wall again. “I should have told you the truth. I mean, the whole truth about my dad.”
Before I could convince myself to back down, I said through gritted teeth. “What about Chess Challenge?”
His jaw clenched. “Yeah, I should have told you the truth about that, too. But then you’d know that I was homeless and…”
A flash of hurt flickered in his eyes, and my heart softened again. “And you were worried about someone finding out.”
He nodded.
“Then I told my parents,” I said, understanding. He’d been trying hard to keep a secret, a secret he thought would get him in trouble, and that’s exactly what had happened. “I’m sorry.”
He swallowed, leaning against the wall. Part of me wanted to go to him, to take his hand, to hug him. But I stayed where I was.
“I was doing what I thought was right,” I said, lifting my chin. “I was worried your dad might be…dangerous to be around.”
Jackson met my eyes. “I understand. I really do. But things are okay between us now. He’s been sober for a while.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m thinking…I don’t know. I’m thinking I might move back in with him.”
I angled my
head, worried. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I think it is. It seems like he has his stuff together. And if not…I’ll try to handle things better.”
His words relieved me. Even though he was being cautious, he seemed less stressed.
“I’m sorry for the other day,” he said.
“Me, too.”
After a few moments of silence, after we’d both stared at the blank wall long enough, he asked, “How was your test?”
A little part of me puffed up, proud of how well I’d done. “I got a ninety-eight percent.”
“Zoe, that’s great. I knew you’d do well.” He smiled, and I took that as an invitation to step closer. Just so I could feel him near me.
“So…Chess Challenge,” he said.
My heart twisted. “Yeah, I’d kind of like to know about that.”
“Remember that day at school when we talked about chess?” he asked. “I liked how you were so into it—so focused. Zugzwang, remember?”
Zugzwang. I had said that to him way back then. I’d said that to BlackKNIGHT, too. I nodded mutely.
“So I went online and found this site. Chess Challenge. And I started playing with this girl. Rogue. I had no idea it was you.”
My cheeks burned. God, I’d told him so many things. So many personal, private things. He had to be thinking how big an idiot I was. Acting like a little girl with a crush on a boy but talking to him online like I knew what I was doing. Like I knew what life was like outside my four walls.
“You told me about your comics and about places you wanted to go,” Jackson continued. “I finally put it all together.”
I drew in a sharp breath. This was probably where he told me it was over between us.
Jackson walked a foot closer. “I think this is a good thing.”
I almost choked on the question. “How?”
“We have so much in common. Rogue was like…my best friend. And you’re—you’re more than that.”
Which was exactly how I felt then. And exactly why I felt so conflicted now, maybe a little like I was losing my best friend.
Jackson scratched his cheek and walked even closer, so our shoes were almost touching. “I really hope this is okay. I know it was a shock, and I didn’t mean to tell you that way. But I still want…”
Paper Girl Page 23
