Breaking Glass (5 page)

I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep again until I wake gasping, heart thudding against my ribs. My lungs are filling with water. I claw at my throat, unable to breathe. Unable to scream, until I finally choke out a cry for help.

It’s starting again.

With my usual defenses stripped away, I’m powerless to stop it. Now there’s nothing to hold back the return of the terrors.

Then

I was nine when Mom picked me up from camp that afternoon, the summer after encountering the Pirate Queen. It was just an ordinary day and Mom was there, like always, but that day something sharp scraped inside my stomach, ordering me not to get in the car. On occasion, Dad left the office for a bit and drove me home for Mom. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I distinctly remember wishing this were one of those days.

Even though the loop of that day has replayed so many times in my head, I can’t remember anything particularly unusual about Mom as she strolled over to my cluster of unruly campers. She was neatly groomed as always, prettier than most of the other moms, that army of frowzy, chubby, and harried women who emerged from their refrigerated SUVs, clutching their containers of iced coffee, to claim their young.

Mom’s blond hair was pulled into a crisp ponytail, her refined features free and clear of makeup. She patted my head and kissed me on the cheek. I caught a whiff of her French perfume and a splash of cinnamon mouthwash, but as she pulled away I saw that feral wildness in her eyes, the empty hopelessness I’d sometimes glimpse when she thought I wasn’t looking; the glazed look of a wounded deer as it lies dying on the forest floor.

Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles were white. She glanced at me in the rear-view mirror and smiled, but her eyes were puffy and red.

If I’d refused to get in the car with her, maybe it never would have happened.

Mom might still be alive.

Now

I hear myself screaming.

Hair unkempt, Dad comes skidding into the study in his bathrobe. I fight to draw breath into my constricted airways. He settles beside me on the chair’s armrest and pulls my sweaty head against his chest. “It’s okay, Jeremy. It’s okay,” he murmurs.

I force my breathing to calm and pull away.

“Was it one of those nightmares again? I thought you stopped having those.”

My heart speeds up again. I want to run. I want to run.

I want to drink.

“I’m okay, Dad,” I finally manage to say. “It happens sometimes, but not as much as—you know—when it happened. I’m kind of used to it, I guess.”

He stands, pats my head, and then steps back and stares at me for a beat before he speaks. “The doctor tells me that these things are normal after a trauma. And you’ve just been through another…” He stops, the words that almost slipped out trapped safely behind his teeth. “Get some sleep. You sure you don’t want me to help you onto the daybed?”

I meet his gaze, questions sizzling on my tongue. The ones I’ll never ask.

Why? Why did she do it?

Dad looks so earnest. So concerned.

Yet no words have ever been spoken between us about what caused my mother to drink every afternoon—and drive her car off the road into the Riverton Gorge with her nine-year-old son strapped into the backseat.

I feign sleep and listen to his slippered feet retreat to the hall, back to the world beyond this room.

And now I can’t stand it anymore. Dad’s study has become the inside of Mom’s car as we sailed over the embankment and plunged into the Gorge, dark waters rising to my eyes, filling my mouth and throat. The pressurized silence as Mom’s hair floated free from its binding in slow motion, like the sea anemones I’d seen at the aquarium.

I wait a half hour until the house noises go silent. Until I’m certain Dad has gone back to sleep. Grabbing the crutches, I throw them over my lap and wheel myself into the kitchen.

Dad’s stash is in the pantry. He thinks I don’t know that he’s never tossed out the contents of Mom’s well-stocked bar, the rows of Absolut lined up like my collection of tin soldiers. He’s hidden the treasure trove behind a few massive bags of barbecue charcoal. Over the years I’ve been refilling them with water.

I can’t imagine why he keeps them.

A shrine to Mom? A test for me?

I raise myself gingerly onto the crutches, appalled how tough it is to balance, even with my workout regimen. I hobble into the dark pantry, careful not to scrape the crutches or fall. I’m shaky; the need for the liquor’s cold warmth calls out from deep inside my bones, drowning out the shame I feel as I reach for what killed my mother and almost killed me eight years ago.

I find the bottle I’ve marked as having the purest undiluted vodka. I’ve only turned to the pantry as a last resort, so there’s plenty to last me.

Uncapping the bottle, I take a swallow, knowing how the liquid will dull my mind, slow my reflexes and make balancing on these crutches an Olympic challenge. But I’ve run marathons after downing half a bottle. And won.

Then

The next day at school, Susannah was wearing an identical black T-shirt, this time with white cargo pants and flip-flops. Her toenails were painted black; though I tried not to stare at her feet, I couldn’t help but notice there were tiny words painted on each nail. Her hair was piled high on her head and it took all my strength not to reach over and pull out the contraption that held it all there, so it would tumble around her shoulders in a shimmering waterfall of curls.

Her T-shirt had the same tiny word “
laugh
”, which was now joined by two other words, “
and the
…”

“Is that a time released T-shirt?” I asked, and was treated to a Mona Lisa smirk.

She pointed her foot and wiggled her toes. “Look.”

I leaned in closer and read the message on her toenails. “…
world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone
.”

“Is that your motto?”

“Yep,” she said, already bent over a box of found material, from which we were all expected, under the reptile gaze of Mr. Wallace, to create a self-portrait that was both breathtakingly original and meaningful.

“It’s mine, too.”

I stared miserably out the window, pondering the exact number of crows that perched on the telephone pole, trying not to think that my self-portrait should be a rusting old car at the bottom of the Gorge.

By the time I’d snapped out of my reverie, Susannah had constructed a figure with a protruding rib cage and outstretched arms entirely from tiny bits of windshield glass and a coat hanger.

“Is that a portrait of me?” I asked, smiling. “You know, Jeremy Glass?”

Susannah slanted her head, dead serious. “You’re a real kidder, aren’t you? Where’s yours?”

“I’m still thinking.” I said, actually wondering why this sunshiny girl was making a portrait of herself with broken glass. “I guess I’ll do a running shoe. That’s what I am. A runner.”

She smiled, then said, “Aren’t we all?” Returning to her efforts, so deeply engrossed in her work that she didn’t even notice when the bell rang.

When I think of Susannah, this is how I like to see her—deep in concentration, her brow furrowed. I wonder if art for her is like running is for me, an escape from the dark things that always threaten to black out the sun.

Now

The sharp edge of my panic dulls. I’m ready to face Susannah’s treasure hunt now.

I hobble unsteadily to the back door and peer out. A black void looms beyond the three steps from the stoop to the driveway and the oak tree beyond. Navigating the steps with crutches is a skill I’ve yet to master. Doing so with a half-bottle of vodka sloshing through my veins is a whole other level of challenge.

But I have to know if there really is a message in the animation, or if Susannah is just playing with me. Why would she send me animations and not get in touch? Anger flares unexpectedly.

She’s abandoned me in my time of need.

Where the hell is she? I have to know.

One precarious step, two steps, three. My sneaker touches asphalt a few seconds before the rubber crutch tips catch up with it. I’m still standing.

I pause, mustering the courage to cross the dark driveway to the old oak tree that was so clearly the one in the animation. I imagine the air rushing by my face as I run, muscles pumping as the pavement purrs beneath my rubber soles. The ground slants. It’s the longest few yards I’ve ever faced. Longer than the final leg of the marathon I’d run last summer, gripped by fever and violent stomach cramps.

Across the dark gulf of pavement, I reach the tree. My tree. I wonder if the animation is a map to guide me here.
But why?

I’m at the base of the tree, moonlight falling on its tangled roots. The night wind nips at my T-shirt and flaps my pajama pants. Ragged clouds frame the moon’s taunting smile. A few raindrops fall. My shattered leg registers nothing, only the steady ache from within the crushed bone, pounding its ominous drumbeat.

The vodka is wearing off and I’m hit by a wave of exhaustion. If I could run, I’d sprint back into the house and crawl under the covers. But coming out here is a commitment. Now I have to follow through.

I glance up to the second-floor windows. Dad’s room is still dark. The wind kicks up. Cold rain slaps the driveway, plastering my hair to my scalp. Gingerly, I lower myself until I am sitting on my butt, the scaffolded leg jutting out like a bridge to nowhere. Rain muddies the place where the growth of moss has been disturbed not so long ago.

Using the tip of my crutch as a spade, I loosen the dirt. The rubber tip bonks something hard. Swiveling, I dig with both hands and feel the corner of what appears to be a box or something.

Rain slams me with repeated thuds. Muddy water fills the hole I’ve made as I pull a cigar box out of the ground. Though the colorful paper label has nearly disintegrated, I recognize the box as the one from Susannah’s animation. I open it. There’s nothing inside except a plastic baggie with a photo of Ryan sealed within. Someone has defaced it with markers and Wite-Out to give him long eyelashes and a mouthful of Dracula teeth. There’s a strip of paper in Susannah’s neat printing that reads:

Ryan has secrets, too
.

I close the box, let the rain wash away the grime, and tuck it under my arm. My mind revs, but then stalls. It’s as oversaturated as my T-shirt, unable to process the fact that the box in Susannah’s video link actually exists.

Water eddies down the slope, pooling around my butt. Cold liquid streams off the metal contraption holding my leg together. I feel nothing but a vague burning itch as I laboriously make my way back inside the house.

C H A P T E R
f i v e

Now

I wake to quiet. Slivers of light creep across the clothes and papers strewn around my floor. I’m sprawled on the daybed, naked save for the strip of sheet draped over my privates like in a Renaissance nude. I don’t remember peeling off my soaked clothes or where I’d put them. My head vibrates like a rhapsody played on steel drums. My leg thrums, the swelling skin between the pins hot to my touch.

Dad has left my daily fix of Vicodin on the mini-fridge with a glass of water, a banana, and a bowl of dry cereal. There is a carton of milk inside.

I dress and chase down the two pills with gulps of water before the grumble of pain becomes a scream. I settle on the bed and wait for the Vikes to kick in and keep the gnawing pain at bay.

Watching my chest rise and fall, I imagine Susannah wiping my brow with a cold compress. What I really need right now is a nurse. A very pretty nurse.

My thoughts skim through lazy fields of memory and imagination. Susannah cavorts through the tall grass flinging flowers at me. My stomach rumbles. I’m starved.

But I’d rather drink before the golden memories turn ugly, grow fangs and bite me.

I consider reaching for the few remaining dregs of vodka in the canteen above my head, but nix that idea. Too much effort. The Vicodin will have to do.

Hours drift by. If I don’t move too much, the numbing haze of my meds masks the grinding gears in my leg well enough that I’m almost comfortable. I reach for the Civil War history book on the night table. Mandatory reading for some, guilty pleasure for me. My thoughts flow back to a different age as I pore over battle trivia and primary documents. At first, I think the rapping at my door is artillery fire. The book flies from my hands.

“Dude! It’s me!” says a muffled voice through the closed door. “The back door was open. Can I come in?”

Ryan. “This isn’t a good time,” I call out weakly. My leg slowly heats like a sausage on a spit. I realize it’s been hours since I last took a painkiller. There’s an aching heaviness between my ribs. My hands are like weights at the ends of my arms.

“You in there, Jer?” Ryan calls through the door.

I try to answer, but before I have the chance, the door bursts open. Ryan peers at me, arms folded. “Dude. You look like crap.”

“Thanks for clearing that up. I was just sitting around wondering if I really do look as shitty as I feel.”