Reclaimed (24 page)

Luke sat down next to me. “I went for a walk and ended up here,” he told me. “Funny how that happened. So, you got in trouble?”

I nodded. My being grounded was the least of my worries.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head.

He reached over and held my hand without saying another word. It was easy to forget everything else. Luke was an island I could escape to.

A whistle rose in the dark, sudden and sharp. Familiar.

“What’s that?” Luke asked.

I smiled. “Full House.” And memories. So much of me was wrapped up in this place. Would I ever truly be able to leave?

“What?”

“A mule,” I explained.

“Like a donkey?”

“Half-donkey, half-horse. He’s hollering for Patty, Mr. Simon’s horse.” I used to feed apples to Patty through the fence. Pops would fuss at me for wasting good fruit on someone else’s horse, but I kept doing it. I loved the way her velvet nose tickled my palm. I’d mostly avoided Full House; I never trusted him.

“How do you know that?” Luke asked.

“The mule used to be Pops’s. We gave him back to Mr. Simon after Pops died. Full House used to do that all the time when Pops had him. Pops would whistle across the fence and call up Patty, then Full House would lean over and he and Patty would scratch their necks together. I think it’s sweet.”

Full House whistled again, trying to find Patty. I heard Patty’s answering whinny.

“Why does he sound like that?” Luke asked.

I told him what Pops had told me once. “He doesn’t know if he’s a donkey or a horse. He’s both, but he’s neither, just like his voice.” I turned sideways in my chair to look at Luke. “His real name is Fred, but Pops always called him Full House because he won him off Mr. Simon in a poker game years ago. They were all out at the deer camp one night, drinking and playing cards. The older they got, the less they hunted and the more they drank. Mops said they stopped bringing home deer when they started bringing home hangovers.”

Her voice had been equal parts anger and love when telling those stories about Pops. I hadn’t understood that then. I was pretty sure I did now.

“Pops didn’t need that mule, but he thought it was funny, so he kept it. The mule’s kind of mean—he doesn’t really like people. But he loves Patty. I think he’s much happier now that he’s back on that side of the fence.”

The wind kicked up again, shushing through the grass, and I lifted my ponytail and let it blow on the back of my neck.

“Do you think we can escape the past?” I asked. Mom had gotten bogged down in hers, and Mops couldn’t move on completely because everyone kept reminding her of what she’d been. I wanted to start all over as a girl who didn’t have so many family skeletons in the closet. But what if that wasn’t even possible?

Luke’s face was so sad that I regretted the question. “We can hope,” he said. But I could tell by his voice that he didn’t really believe it.

I wasn’t sure how someone could be both strong and fragile. Luke was solid and broad and sturdy, yet at times I felt he might shatter into a million pieces, leaving me behind to collect them and somehow get them back in order, knowing that I was wholly inadequate and unprepared for such a task.

I leaned my head on his shoulder. My heart squeezed itself against my ribs, all swollen and sore, and I couldn’t seem to fill my lungs with enough air. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered. I knew it was true when I said it out loud. I felt it in my skin.

Luke was still, shadows flickering across his face like an old black-and-white film. “You aren’t supposed to love the dead.” I didn’t have a response to that.

“I’m a ghost,” Luke whispered, “a shadow.” And in that moment, he felt like one.

I was too flawed to love. I was afraid of what would happen if she really did love me. It seemed I always hurt those closest to me.

“Have you talked to Ian?” Jenna asked finally.

“No. I haven’t seen him all day, actually. Why?”

“Because I did. He came by the house yesterday, and my mom yelled at him for bringing me home at that hour, and so he knew, but I was going to have to tell him anyway.” She sighed, like everything was her fault. None of this was her fault. I would take all the blame. “I broke it off.”

“Are you sure?” I couldn’t help feeling she was making a mistake. As much as I wanted her to stay, I couldn’t stop myself from trying to make her go. “Ian is going places. He’ll go to college, major in something responsible. I have no future.”

“I don’t buy any of that.” She reached up and ran her thumb back and forth across my cheek, like she was trying to rub something away.

“I don’t deserve you,” I whispered.

“No one ever deserves anyone else,” she whispered back. “You can’t earn a person. They’re a gift.”

I wanted to believe her. More than anything, I wanted to be enough for her. But no matter how tightly I clung to things, I could feel everything crumbling beneath me.

I locked myself in my room. Luke wasn’t the only one who could hide behind barricades. Luke wasn’t the only one who was going to get what he wanted. It was time I stopped waiting for things to go my way and started making sure they did. No matter what.

I had to stop wandering in the dark. Mom wouldn’t tell me anything—she was still trying to protect Luke. I didn’t understand it. I was so careful. I did everything right and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Mom was still looking out for Luke. Jenna was still looking at Luke. There was hardly anything left for me to put back together.

I’d almost had everything—Jenna in my arms, her lips on mine.

And then Luke had taken it. My anger caused my head to pound, and I closed my eyes and let the ache steer me through the maze. Last night at Jenna’s, I’d heard the door unlock and been too afraid to look in and find it. I wasn’t afraid anymore.

I turned corners and followed empty corridors. Strips of shadow and light followed more corners and shadow. Always shadows. The corridors were getting shorter and the corners sharper. I caught a glimpse of something moving and began to run.

The maze twisted away from me. There was fabric, then nothing. A flash of arm, then shadows.

I ran past a window. There was a shattered fence and a broken tree. Another corner was followed by another and another. And the door. I pulled up short. I’d found the door with the strip of light. This time, it was cracked open a little, enough that the light lit up the center of the maze. Not enough to see what was on the other side.

But I couldn’t open it all the way because the shadow was there, sitting cross-legged in front of the door. And I knew her. I’d seen her at the lake. At Jenna’s. But I’d known her before. Of course I did. The girl from the picture. Mandy. Her name made me shudder. Then I realized the trembling was outside of me. The maze was crumbling.

Ian was standing outside my room when I came up the stairs.

“You son of a bitch,” he said. He didn’t sound like Ian at all.

“We’re sorry.” It was sort of the truth; it was kind of a lie.

“
We
?” Ian flinched. “Since when did it become
we
?”

I sighed. “What do you want from me, Ian?”

“I want you to leave her the hell alone.”

“I can’t do that.” Can’t. Won’t. It was all the same thing.

I could feel Ian’s fury the same way I’d felt his pain and fear when we were kids. But this was much stronger than those feelings had ever been.

“She’s mine,” he said.

“She doesn’t belong to either one of us.” That I was sure of.

“Well I’m sure as hell not going to let
you
have her.” He shoved me hard in the chest, pushing me out of the hallway and into my room. “Don’t see Jenna again,” Ian threatened.

“Or what?” I didn’t know who the hell he thought he was. He’d never been the one in charge.

“Why don’t you push me and see,” he said. I didn’t like his look, the way his voice hinted at something dangerous. He sounded desperate. “I’m doing everything I can to keep this family from completely falling apart. You’ve done everything you could to make sure we did. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of my way.” Ian took a deep breath. “Remember Mandy?” he asked.

I went cold. I hadn’t heard that name in over a year. I didn’t want to now.

“
I
do,” Ian continued. “Mandy was mine. I remember how she died. And that you killed her.”

His words reached into my chest and squeezed my lungs. Lights popped behind my eyes.

“How could you do this again?” Ian asked. “I’m your brother.” He shook his head, disgust filling his face. “You hurt people. Don’t destroy her too.”

He didn’t have to say her name—it was the only name that mattered to me, and she was the only other person who inhabited my desolate little world.

Ian’s smile was sly as he pointed at me. “I know you,” he whispered, “inside and out. I know just exactly how to hurt you.” He stalked into his room. “I learned from the best.”

He slammed the door, and the frayed string that connected us snapped.

* * *

I went back downstairs, no longer tired, no longer interested in being holed up in my room. Mom was just getting in from work. She looked exhausted. She looked older than she had a few months ago, and I knew it was my fault. She stopped in the hall, her face hopeful. “Ian?”

When I shook my head, her shoulders drooped forward. She turned her face away from me. “Where’s Ian?”

“In his room,” I told her.

Mom sighed. I wanted to wrap my arms around her. I wanted to bury my face in her shoulder like I had when I was little. But I was afraid. Thinking she would turn away wasn’t easy to take. Knowing it for certain would be unbearable. Most of the time I didn’t care what people thought about me. It was how I’d ended up where I was in the first place. But I hated disappointing my mom. I knew that I’d put that sorrow on her face. I wished more than anything that I could take it back. Sometimes I wished it so hard that my chest hurt. But I couldn’t go back and change things. I could never change the fact that the accident was my fault. That someone died. That I lost my parents’ love. And that they were justified in it.

“I’m going to bed,” Mom said. She couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me for very long.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” I asked.

Her eyes filled with tears, and I prayed they wouldn’t spill over. “Because it hurts too much.”

The truth was like bathing in tiny shards of glass. “What do you want me to do?” It was a question I wasn’t sure I wanted answered.

Her hands fluttered, unable to rest. “I want everything to be the way it was. I want to sleep through the night. I want so much that isn’t possible. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind,” she whispered. “I—” Her voice cracked. “I’m going to bed.”

She left me standing alone in the kitchen. I knew what needed to be done. It was just that sometimes the right thing felt horribly wrong.

I put off the inevitable for three days. Three days of staying in my room and not thinking about Jenna—and trying to figure out any other way. But there wasn’t. Ian was right. Jenna needed to be as far away from me as possible. Caring about me would only hurt her. Losing her would be just the sort of hell I deserved.

It was dark when I took off walking. I followed a small path into the woods, where the shadows swallowed me. A couple of coyotes yipped off to my left. I wanted to throw back my head and shout, too. I doubted anyone would hear me.

It was a long walk to Jenna’s house. I crossed a wooden bridge and came out in the train yard. I climbed onto the tracks and balanced myself on the rails. I wondered what it had been like when the trains were running. How far away could someone stand and feel the rumble of the train?

I passed the lonely buildings and reached the outskirts of town. There were a lot of abandoned buildings here too, doors nailed shut, windows boarded up, signs hanging and broken. Jenna had told me that, once the trains left, the other jobs dried up too. The small factory in town. Several shops. The end of town closest to the railroad seemed to have boarded the last train out of here. It was depressing.

I cut through the woods behind Jenna’s neighborhood, and dogs barked as I eased behind the fences. Most of the lights were off. Jenna was probably sleeping. Normal people were.

But her light was on. I had no idea how I was going to get her to come out; her mom had her phone. Throwing pebbles at her window seemed like a bad idea. That only worked in the movies. If I did it, I was sure to shatter glass.

I climbed the tree instead. It wasn’t very big, and I wasn’t sure it was even going to hold my weight. But I’d always been good at climbing. I could shimmy up a tree faster than anyone in the neighborhood. It was one of the few things I was better at than Ian. Dad said it was because I was reckless. We’d had a huge tree in our backyard when we lived in Colorado, and I could see the whole neighborhood while no one could see me. I watched Ian and Dad play catch for hours. I watched the teenage girl next door when she laid out in her bikini. I watched Mr. Cutrer sneak out behind his shed and smoke when his wife was watching her shows. I was master of the universe in that tree.

The tree in Jenna’s yard was flimsy. I eased out onto the largest limb—it creaked underneath me. I slowly pushed myself onto my toes. Even then I could just barely reach up and tap on the glass. I waited. If she didn’t hurry, the branch was going to snap and she was going to find me in the morning, broken into pieces like Humpty Dumpty. I knocked harder on the glass, losing my balance just a bit. I reached out and grabbed hold of a branch, barely catching myself before I plummeted to the ground.

Jenna’s face bloomed at the window. She looked nervous—until she saw me. She broke out in a huge grin as she opened the window. “Luke! Get down from there before you break your neck.”

“Can you come out?” I asked her. I didn’t want to go in. I hoped this would be easier in the dark. “We need to talk.”

Her smile disappeared. “Um, sure. I think my mom’s asleep. Just give me a minute.”