Places No One Knows (11 page)

When I was eight, the woman who volunteered as the recess aide told me I wasn't allowed to show people the dead squirrel by the trash cans anymore because it was scaring the other kids and if I kept talking about decomposition, I wasn't going to have any friends and didn't I want people to like me?

I didn't know how to answer. I hadn't been trying to make people like me, but I hadn't been trying to scare them either.

As soon as I got home, I went into the study and told my mother what the recess woman said. Then I lay on the floor and waited for her to fix it.

“You don't have to stop thinking about autolysis and putrefaction,” she said finally. I stared at her bare feet, hooked on the rail of her chair, as I lay under her desk, chewing on a pencil. “But you might consider talking about it less.”

The way she said it was businesslike. She had analyzed the problem; this was the solution.

I pressed the pencil against my teeth, then bit down hard. “What am I supposed to talk about?” I said, but it sounded tiny and indistinct.

My mom was quiet for a while. “Well, their interests, for example. I'm sure you can think of something.” She took a deep breath and then I heard her close her laptop. “You're going to meet a lot of people, Waverly, and most of them just aren't going to be interested in the decomposition process.”

The way she sounded when she said it made a gleaming web of circuits in my head. It confirmed everything I'd ever suspected, but hadn't been savvy enough to put into words.

My mom scooted her chair back and peered under the desk. I had stopped rubbing my feet on the carpet. I had stopped breathing.

“Sweetie,” she said. Her voice was softer now. “There's nothing wrong with you. You're just ahead of the curve. You know that, right?”

It was a phrase I'd been hearing since kindergarten, and I nodded, but now I knew the truth.

I lay on my back, staring at the grain in the wood and sucking on the inside of my arm, even though it was something I'd mostly grown out of.

If we were having this conversation, that meant something was either wrong with me, or it was wrong with everybody else, and I had a basic enough understanding of probability to know that the odds did not rest with an entire planet.

In the glow of the candle, with my heart beating swift and shallow, I close my eyes and start to count.

The possibility that I'm becoming increasingly unsound—or else that the world is—should scare me, but it doesn't. All evening, I could barely wait for night. For every obligation to be over so I could light the candle and see if I'd wind up someplace else. My brain might be failing, the world might be unraveling, but no, it doesn't scare me. Because no matter how impossible, Marshall is the one place where I can be completely real and everything's still okay.

I can tell the truth, say all the worst, most honest things. I can scare everyone and never have to worry about the consequences.

When I open my eyes, I'm standing in the doorway of a small, low-ceilinged living room. Marshall is in front of the TV, stretched out across a very plaid couch, and there's a yellow dog staring at me with its head cocked to one side. That, along with a whole array of other landmarks, tells me I'm not at his brother's house.

The light from the television is flickering bright and dark. He's got one arm tucked awkwardly back behind his head and is staring at the screen like he's not really seeing it.

I stand in the door, just waiting, just watching. He looks tired. Abnormally young.

A girl comes skimming past me, wearing a red convenience store smock. Her hair is yanked back into a ponytail. In the light from the TV, she looks blurry and kind. She's carrying a stack of books, but the way she's holding them, I can't see the subjects. “Mars, go to bed.”

He shakes his head, glancing at me, then away again. “
Storage Wars
is on. I think I'll just hang out here for a while.” Then he winces and turns his face into the pillow, coughing hard.

She drops the books in a careless spill against his shins, then yanks the smock over her head, revealing a plain gray T-shirt. “God, yuck. If you've got another respiratory infection, tell Mom to get you some antibiotics.”

She brushes past me again and disappears down the hall, returning a minute later with a blanket. When she offers it to him, Marshall takes it and drapes it clumsily over himself.

The gesture is weirdly tender and I have the sensation of a hook tugging at something in my chest. Then she scoops up the books again, juggling wallet and phone and car keys, nudging the yellow dog out of her way with her hip.

When she's gone, Marshall turns his head. “Hey, you. How are things in ghostland?”

I want to make some snarky comment, some remark about how insomnia is better than typhoid, but in the end all I say is “Hi.”

He jerks his head toward the couch and I perch myself on the edge, careful not to lean against him or touch his worn-soft blanket. He scoots back against the cushions to make room, but doesn't rearrange his legs or sit up.

I hunch forward, pinning my hands between my knees. “Looks like you decided to stay in tonight. Are you really that hungover?”

He shakes his head. “Sick. Some chest thing. It's really gross.”

There's a part of me that wants to tell him I don't think he's gross, but the words won't come. Instead, there's just my usual script—Waverly Classic. “Maybe this is a sign from God that you shouldn't be kissing girls indiscriminately.”

When he smiles, the shape of his mouth looks like he's in pain. It's hard to know what I'm supposed to do. I'm not good with tender ministrations.

“Is there anything you need?” I say, and I don't sound tender, but I sound helpful. I just want him to see that when he hurts, I'm not enjoying it.

He looks up at me. His cheeks are flushed in hectic blotches. “Put your cold little hand on my neck?”

I feel self-conscious suddenly, and shy. “Do you want me to hold it under the faucet first?”

“No, I just want to feel it.” His voice is low and matter-of-fact. Honest. “I like how…how
real
it is. I was kind of hoping you'd show up, you know?”

And the thing is, I do.

When I touch him, he squeezes his eyes shut and reaches out, fumbling across the couch for me. His skin is dry, furiously hot. His hand is blazing against my thigh and he leaves it there, rubbing his thumb over the place just above my knee. He looks ragged in the lamplight, hollow-cheeked and sunken-eyed from staying out every night. His touch is gentle and deliberate, like he means it.

“You need to stop being so rough on yourself,” I say.

That makes him smile. He squeezes my leg and keeps his eyes closed. “Says the girl who doesn't sleep.”

It takes me a second to realize he's talking about what I said on the porch the other night. “Yeah, well, I never get sick.”

He gives me a soft little pat, but doesn't say anything. His smile is knowing, sad in a way that makes me feel stupid and obvious. His hand on my thigh makes my cheeks prickly and too warm.

“Why do you do that all the time?” I say. “Getting drunk, getting high—I mean, I don't see the point.”

He turns his face into the pillow and laughs. “There's no
point.
It's just a way to be.”

“Be what, exactly?” My tone is flippant, implying a list of negatives.
Not
be important or productive.
Not
be a success.

He's got his face half buried in the couch, talking into the upholstery, but he says the next part clearly enough. “Here without having to be here.”

He doesn't sound embarrassed, just weirdly factual.

I look down at his hand. It's softer, more delicate than I'd remembered, with clean cuticles and long, tapering fingers. Under it, the shape of my thigh is stringy. Utilitarian. The living room is bristling with furniture—end tables and recliners and terrible lamps—like it's supposed to be full of more people than just the two of us.

Marshall takes a breath like he's about to say something else, but halfway through, he's gripped by a ferocious coughing fit. He pushes himself up from the couch, sitting doubled over with his forehead against his knees. The way his face goes violent-pink, blood blooming under his skin, is slightly alarming.

“Are you okay? Do you need a drink of water?”

He shakes his head, still red in the face, trying to catch his breath. After a minute, he lies back.

I rest my hand on his neck again, rubbing my thumb over the smooth, burning skin, touching the hollow behind his ear. “You really shouldn't be smoking in your condition. Also, if you have a respiratory infection, antibiotics probably won't help. Most respiratory infections are viral.”

He sighs, smiling a resigned little smile. “Waverly, you make me want to die, but it's in the best way. You have no idea.”

“Mars?” A woman's voice drifts in from the kitchen. “Who you talking to in there?”

“No one,” he calls back. “It's just the TV.”

She creeps into the room looking pretty and timid, much too young to be the mother of three mostly grown kids. She approaches Marshall like she's weaponizing plutonium, bending over the plaid couch to feel his forehead. He doesn't make it easy. He was unresisting for his sister, accepting the blanket and the good-natured fussing, but his mother's hand on his face makes him flinch.

“I'm okay.” He raises himself on his elbow, twisting away.

“Mars, baby, you're burning up. Let me get you some aspirin.”

Her face is worried in a way my own mother wouldn't even comprehend. At my house, the concerns of the material world are purely secondary. I've been raised on the philosophy that once you can read the instructions on the Bisquick box and reach the stove, you're on your own. A chest cold is not life-threatening.

Marshall's mom is leaning over him, brushing his hair back like he's younger than he is. He lets his cheek sink into the pillow, but he's gazing past her, right at me.

I'm going now. I can feel my skin getting thinner. I hate the transparent feeling of already fading.

He gives me an imploring look and mouths the words
Don't leave.

“I have to,” I say, but when I move my lips, no sound comes out.

Marshall isn't at school. This should not be the focal point of my day. There's a bibliography due for the long project in English and a brace of practice sets for trig, and I don't have time to be thinking about someone else's questionable attendance.

His desk is uncomfortably vacant when I hold up my compact.

By the time office duty rolls around, I'm nearly climbing out of my skin.

I don't know whether to twirl or pace or start pulling out my hair. Instead, I write myself a pass for the west hall bathroom.

I have no secrets to confess, nothing clamoring to be heard. Even in kindergarten, I was never one for sharing. After six frantic laps between the wall and the door, I get out my pen anyway.

To the girl who thinks you can get pregnant from giving head, I write:

To all the girls who complain that their supposed BFFs are copying their style/mannerisms/catch-phrases/accessories, and then proclaim in self-satisfied tones:

I paraphrase a certain popular film and write:

I write this only once, and then divide it—a collection of arrows spiderwebbing out, sprawling to touch the relevant grievances, all various permutations of the same problem.

To:

I shake my head and write:

Near my first contribution, someone has written:

I consider this and write my longest, most truthful response to date.