Breaking Glass (26 page)

I slump in the wheelchair, nerveless. The fever in me rises again. I’m ravenous. An animal. Consumed by a flash fire, I kiss the neck and hair I can’t see, the scent of vanilla and summer rain scorching my lungs.

I exhale in a tremulous shudder. I have no breath. My words burn to cinders in the flames that lick at my skin.

I’m ready to follow her. Ready to sink into oblivion with her so I can burn with her forever.

Panting wildly, I pull away, an unstable compound, about to go nuclear at the slightest touch. Trembling on one leg, I want to scream—
why did you have to leave me
? And I find I’m filling with rage for the one who took her from me.

The room echoes with whispers.
Join me
,
Jeremy
.

She torments me with kisses until my heat explodes in volcanic eruptions of legendary proportions.

“Yes,” I murmur, tears sliding down my cheeks. “I’ll do it. But first, I’ll make sure whoever took you from me will pay for it.”

Her form brightens, then fades. Within the haze, I tell myself I see a smile. My surroundings solidify. She’s gone.

I’m left standing naked, my arms empty, balanced tenuously on one leg like a stork in the middle of my room.

I lunge for the bed in a few clumsy leaps before I fall. Feverish, I’m shaking violently, cold and hot all at the same time. I pull the covers over my head and try to think.

I’ve somehow managed to find an even more toxic addiction than alcohol.

C H A P T E R
t w e n t y - t h r e e

Then

Somehow, as winter dragged on, our threesome held steady. I had started to believe that the triangle really
was
the strongest form in geometry.

My sixteenth birthday was March 14 and Ryan’s March 30. We’d always made a habit of celebrating the weekend between. This year, Susannah suggested the three of us go bowling. I wasn’t a big fan of bowling. I might have been a champion runner, but I was not known for my stellar hand-eye coordination. Ryan was only marginally better. But Susannah was a natural, hitting strike after strike.

After her triumphant fist-pumping victory, Susannah presented us each with oversized black envelopes, both elaborately printed in white with our names and decorated with glitter, sequins, and feathers. Very Susannah.

I carefully opened mine and pulled out what looked to be a giant ticket.

Trip to Pirate Island
, it said.
Passage for One. April 23
.

“April 23?” Ryan looked baffled. “What is this?”

“A boarding ticket.” I said.

Ryan still looked confused. Susannah laughed and roughed up his hair. “That’s
my
birthday, silly,” Susannah said. “We’re going on a little trip to Pirate Island. And neither of you are ever going to forget it.”

Eventually, April 23 rolled along. It was a mild night for the season. Susannah insisted we all meet by the rocks that descended to the reservoir. “Bring flashlights and dress like a pirate,” she’d said. I’d brought her birthday gift in my knapsack, a pair of turquoise and silver earrings shaped like feathers. I very much wanted to see them mingling with her curls.

Ryan and I rode together. We’d both wrapped our heads in bandannas and Ryan who had no problem with theatricality, had slipped on a black patch over one eye. He’d already gotten his driver’s license, though it was a junior license and he wasn’t supposed to be out after nine o’clock in the evening. Down by the water’s edge, Susannah waited.

My heart nearly stopped. She wore a filmy black dress that flowed to mid-calf, a silver shawl wrapped around her waist, spiky boots, and a necklace of pearls. From under a silver bandanna, her hair flowed loose. Her vamped-up version of a Pirate Queen. The rowboat floated beside the rocks, lit by about a dozen votive candles.

The effect was mythical and dreamlike. I was so consumed with want, I thought I’d pass out from lack of oxygen to my brain.

“Beautiful,” whispered Ryan. “You’re so beautiful, Suze. This is beautiful.”

Mortified, yet insane with desire, I climbed in the boat, unable to croak out a single word.

We rowed in silence across the moonlit reservoir to the tiny island almost clear on the other side.

“Welcome to Pirate Island, the lair of the Pirate Queen,” Susannah said, getting out of the boat. She’d placed dozens of votive candles to create a path to the center of the small island.

My insides churned, my heart pounded.
What was I doing?
I was terrified to be out on the water, certain my terrors would come back. Worse was the knowledge that my situation was unsustainable. I couldn’t go on this way. I couldn’t go on being old reliable Jeremy Glass, trusty triangle side and third wheel.

It was killing me. Heartbeat by heartbeat.

I don’t remember Ryan’s reaction. I don’t remember much from that night, except for the sculpture at the center of the island Susannah had surrounded with more votive candles. It was an abstract tree she’d made from plaster, embedded with a mosaic made from tiny bits of colored glass and ceramic tile. The tree had three trunks that twisted around each other and ended in branches made of grasping hands.

“A shrine to us,” Susannah said dancing around her creation. “A tree with three trunks whose roots are so intertwined that, if one of us should wither, the whole tree will die.”

She and Ryan kissed tenderly by the light of the votives. And inside, I withered just a bit more.

Needless to say, I drank a lot when I got home that night.

Now

I spend sleepless hours staring at the ceiling, part of me hoping that she’ll return, the other part dreading the same thing. Finally, I slip into a fitful sleep.

I’m flopped on the shady rock ledge that borders the reservoir, near the spot where Susannah disappeared, my legs fused into a massive iridescent fishtail. Susannah stands at the water’s edge, her bronze curls glinting in the sunlight. She laughs and motions for me to come down to the shoreline, but I balk, knowing the sharp rocks will gash the tender underside of my tail. She insists; not being able to refuse her, I slither down, my heavy tail sliding over the jagged rocks. Sharp points scrape against the scales and pierce the soft flesh. Blood stains the rock. The pain is terrible, but I don’t want to disappoint her.

I finally reach the water’s edge and Susannah dives, slicing gracefully into the water without a splash. I heave my cumbersome body off the rocks and submerge myself in the cold water, the powerful fin propelling me after her. I follow Susannah to the darkest depths where the sunlight doesn’t reach.

At the reservoir bottom, a woman sits at a vanity. My mother. Methodically, she brushes her hair, the ballerina on her jewelry box spinning in a continuous pirouette.

Susannah frowns and gestures for me to keep swimming. But I halt beside my mother, who turns to me and nods. She picks up the jewelry box that sits on her vanity. Susannah has doubled back and is angrily pulling on my arm.

But I remain where I am, riveted by what my mother is doing, as if she is about to reveal the secrets of the universe.

She lifts the jewelry box, holding it like a book. And then, in the strange way of dreams—it is a book.

It’s still dark when I wake. My sheets are tangled around me like vines, the dream tattooed on my eyelids. Buzzing with restless energy, I take to the crutches to begin my tedious gait practice until my leg and elbows are stiff with the effort.

My body is limp with exhaustion, but my brain won’t shut off. I review the dream and try to puzzle out its meaning. There’s something I’m just not getting, so I haul myself up again and pace some more until my arms are about to fall off.

The persistent tick of Dad’s old desk clock reminds me of what I need to do. Part of the dream’s meaning clicks into place. If I don’t solve Susannah’s murder, her eternal spirit is going to drag me down to join her.

Apparently, the dream version of my mother doesn’t like that. Yet, she was the one who drove me into the Gorge strapped into the back of our car.

Or did she?
Has my mother been trying to get a message to me all these years?

I’m just not sure what the symbolism means. A jewelry box turning into a book seems like the nonsensical language of dreams. But great scientific breakthroughs have often been sparked by dreams, like the scientist, Kekule, who solved the molecular structure of the chemical benzene after dreaming about the
ouroboros
symbol—a snake biting its own tail.

I’m not sure I’m ready to face the attic and the secrets buried there just yet. But there’s a person who is ripe for the picking.

I call Ryan at ten AM and he answers immediately, breathless. On edge.

“Everything okay, Jer?”

I tell him I want to meet him in our old elementary school playground. On the swings. There’s a silent pause.

“You’re not serious, are you? There’s a foot of snow out there. How will you—”

“You worry about you. I’ll worry about me. I want to clear my chest about some things. Stuff about me you don’t know.”

I hear him swallow and hope that my somewhat lame strategy will work. If I confess my darkest secrets, maybe Ryan’s paper-thin veneer will tear, revealing the truth behind it.

“I can pick you up and drive us there,” Ryan offers. I grit my teeth. Why does he have to be so fucking considerate? I want my own wheels. Dad thinks he’s hidden my car keys, but I know exactly where they are.

“No. I can get there myself.”

That is, of course, if I can make it to the car. It’s still parked at the bottom of our steep driveway under the carport. I peer out the window. More snow has fallen. There’s about a foot on the ground now, but at least Dad has had someone shovel and plow the driveway, so I have a fighting chance.

Getting to the car is a little more of a challenge than I’d imagined, but my gait practice has paid off. I only fall twice.

Fortunately, there’s enough gas in the car to get to the Riverton Elementary School. The playground is the one where I first met Susannah. It seems a fitting place to untangle the mystery of her death.

But is Ryan a murderer? It’s clear he’s been falling apart lately, his actor’s bravado slipping off him like an oversized coat.

I’ll be doing him a favor. Relieving him of his burden. It could have been an accident. Or he could have witnessed something. I have no idea. But I need to find out. And soon.