Solitary: A Novel (35 page)

"What about your mother?"

In my excitement and zeal and passion, I'm forgetting the obvious. She can see it on my face.

"You going to take your mom with us?"

"That might be a problem," I say.

"We can't just run away and leave her."

"Then what do we do?"

"I don't know."

"There's gotta be someone we can trust. What about Sheriff Wells? When he was at our house-I don't know. He seemed trustworthy."

Jocelyn looks skeptical. "I don't know. You have to be careful."

"Why?"

"Because-because I don't want something happening to you."

"Why are you so worried about me and yet you've almost given up on yourself?"

She shakes her head and looks away. "I better leave," she says. "You stay here for a few minutes to let me slip out."

"Where do we-how should we talk next?"

She smiles, for the first time in this conversation. God, is it a wondrous smile.

Guys would go to the ends of the earth for a smile like that.

"There's a place I haven't shown you yet."

"What? Behind the falls? At an abandoned church?"

"No," she says, still smiling. "Another place."

"What's so special about this place?'

"Nobody knows it exists. Or at least nobody cares that it does."

I shake my head. "Every single thing has to be some big mystery, doesn't it?"

She reaches over and touches my chest right above my heart, then dazzles me with her glance. "Not everything, Chris."

With those words, she leaves.

Just like that.

I wait another ten minutes, then leave the library.

I ignore the scowls of the ladies behind the desk.

It's quiet. A little too quiet for the locker room this time of the day. It's like everybody's been sent home.

Or everybody else has been told to get out.

When I hear the swinging door to the room blast open, I know my time is due.

I quickly claw my long-sleeved T-shirt over my head, then turn to see who made the noise.

Gus is standing there, a baseball bat in his hand, Burt and Riley behind him.

There's no Oli.

Surely Oli's around somewhere.

"You ever been hit by a bat?" Gus asks.

I swallow and bend over to slip on my tennis shoe. "Can't say I have," I say, quickly tying the laces.

"You know what one of these can do to your side? To your back? Nobody will even have to know. You can take out a rib pretty easily."

His face, his eyes, his walk-everything is amped up. Like he's on something. Maybe he's just flying on adrenaline and pent-up anger. All I know is that this is real and that bat is real and I'm not going to be so lucky this time.

A map of the room plays out in my head. There's a long row of lockers that feeds into the bathroom. No exit out that way. To my right is the entrance to the room, which Gus and his boys are blocking. To my left is the small hallway leading to the gym and field.

Something tells me that door is blocked too.

Gus curses at me. "You know something, I don't care if I get suspended. Not for this. You've been a pain ever since you stepped foot in this school. I'm sick of you making me look stupid."

He steps closer.

Talking isn't going to do anything. I know I have to run.

I nod, smile, then bend over and pick up somebody's bag with some football cleats in it.

"Look, man," I start to say, then whip the bag toward Gus as I sprint to my left and head to the hallway.

I'm sure he'll just swat the bag away like an annoying insect, but I don't look back to see.

The small hall makes a ninety-degree turn that leads to the door.

I slip and pound against the cement wall as I turn the corner.

To see Oli.

He's standing there, blocking the closed door, looking irritated and ready.

And then ...

"Man, you gotta be a little smarter, Chris," he says in a whisper that I hear but don't understand.

Why's he whispering, and why's he opening the door?

"Keep your mouth shut about this, okay? You got it?"

The door is opened and I don't get it, but I nod and I sprint through it toward the gymnasium.

The door shuts behind me.

As I run through the gym, I try to think how this happened.

Oli just opened the door.

He just let me go.

I think back to the other times they've tried to grab me.

Once was in the bathroom, where I caught Oli off guard and tore out of the stall. The other was in this same locker room, where I managed to get by the big guy.

I replay the scenes in my head, now wondering if I was really so crafty or if Oli might have let me go each time.

I can outrun Gus, and those other two guys are wimps, but Oli's the real deal.

As I reach the hallway to the high school, I wonder if I might have a secret ally

It's not like I'm unaware of my lack of connection. Even here at this high school in the middle of nowhere, I see kids walking around with their phones, typing and texting and connecting. It's no different from back home. Kids are kids. The fact that I finally just got Internet at home doesn't escape me.

My problem is that the more I feel I connect, the more trouble I get in.

Connection now comes the old-fashioned way. Just like it has all along since I've been here.

The sheet of paper, the handwritten note.

Good old-fashioned communication.

Nondetectable communication.

Rachel comes up to me on Wednesday as I'm walking away from lunch and slips me a note.

"How are you doing?" she asks.

Since I've been banned from Jocelyn by someone or some people I don't even know, I haven't had much connection with Rachel or Poe either.

"Fine."

"That's good to hear."

"I can guess who this is from."

She shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talking about. Just wanted to say hi. I miss having you around at lunch."

"Yeah, me too."

"Crazy place, huh?" Rachel says.

"Yep."

"Don't let it get you down."

"How's Lee?"

"He's not."

I nod.

"Watch your back," Rachel says in a matter that I can't tell is joking or serious.

I am watching my back. Every moment of every day.

I take the note into the bathroom, making sure Gus or his buddies aren't around to follow me, then read it.

The only thing on it are directions.

That and a time. Five p.m. today.

The intrigue continues.

The old railroad signal stands like a rusty relic from the past, one eye staring out under a round tube, unused for many years now. This is where I'm supposed to stop and head into the woods.

I glance at my watch and can barely make out that it's five thirty. The sun is already far below the trees, and I know that any daylight will soon be gone. I didn't realize how long it would take me to get here. I'm walking with my backpack over my shoulder.

I hope Jocelyn will still be there.

I head into woods that instantly seem to get darker. In her note, she says to simply turn right at the railroad signal. That I can't miss it. I walk as straight as possible.

What can't I miss? A big hole in the middle of the earth? A dark, haunted prison? How about a field full of the walking dead, all coming at me?

But ten minutes later, if that, the woods open up, and I see a large, square, two-story building.

It's a big barn in the middle of nowhere.

A light flickers inside a window (or the empty hole that used to be a window).

Either Jocelyn is there or I'm about to be really freaked out.

As I get closer, I see that the large mouth of an opening no longer has a door. I enter and feel chilled and look for the source of the light.

"Chris?" a hushed voice calls out.

A beam from a flashlight causes me to squint and hold up my hand. The light goes back out.

"Come here," she says.

I walk past several stalls that probably held horses or cattle at one point. There's only dirt on the ground as I walk through cobwebs and brush them off my face. I reach the open door where the light came from.

It pops on again, and I see her face. Hovering in the darkness, a white angelic portrait of perfection.

"You're late," she says.

"I didn't realize how long it would take."

"I'm sorry-it's a long haul, walking."

"What are we doing here?" I ask.

"Come here. Look."

I stand by her and smell her sweet strawberry smell. The flashlight points at a corner in the stall. I see a box of some kind on its side-then something black and furry pops its head out.

"What is that?" I ask. For some reason I think of one of those creatures from Return of the jedi, an Ewok.

"It's a puppy."

"What?" I ask, laughing and kneeling down to see it.

Sure enough, the black and white ball of fur is a puppy. I pick it up, and it reaches my face and starts to lick me.

"Where'd you find him?"

"It's a her, actually. A neighbor gave it to me. Wade threatened to kill her-and I've seen him run over dogs. I know he'd do it. So I brought her out here."

"What is this place? How'd you find it?"

"Just an old barn that hasn't been used in years. Probably because the trains don't run through town anymore. You probably didn't see it, but there's a road right behind the barn. Kinda hard to get to-you have to use four-wheel drive-but it only takes about ten minutes from downtown."

I'm petting the puppy as I look around.

"Nobody is watching this place," Jocelyn continues. "I like to imagine that it's mine."

"Not sure what it looks like in the daytime, but it sure doesn't seem very homey."

"You ever see It's a Wonderful Life?"

"Yeah, think so. Bits at least."

"Bits? Come on."

"It's an old movie," I tell her.

"And what's that mean? There's the scene where they're looking at this old house, and Donna Reed makes a wish to be living there one day. I've done that with this old place."

"What's the puppy's name?" I ask.

"Midnight."

I can feel Midnight licking my cheek again. She's so light, like I'm holding a fur glove in my hand.

"So she just stays here? You don't worry about her?"

"Nah. This stall opens up to another-I close the doors, but she's got plenty of room to run around. That keeps out any animals that might look at her like an evening meal."

"More like an appetizer."

Jocelyn chuckles. "I come here once a day to check on her and just hang out. I like to imagine what it would be like to live here. This place, this freedom, being able to call it my life." She takes the puppy from my hands. "Sometimes I can't wait to see Midnight. Sometimes that's what gets me through the day."

"Sounds poetic," I say.

"It's a lot more than that. It's hope. It's a wonderful thing, hope."

"I love you."

The words seem to come out of nowhere, and I half wonder who said them.

She looks at me, and in the beam of the light shining down on the ground, her face is accented and shadowed and glorious. She gives me her usual sweet, sad smile.

"Sorry, that just-that just came out."

"That's the best kind, then."

Jocelyn puts Midnight back on the blanket in the box and takes my hand. She closes the door to the stall and then leads me to the back of the barn. She tells me to hold the light as she climbs an old wooden ladder, then beckons me to follow.

Sometimes I feel like Midnight must feel, following this girl everywhere she goes.

Soon we're sitting on the ledge of an opening at the top of the barn where there used to be either a large door or window. I can still see the edges of the smoldering sun in the distant horizon.

She leans against me and holds my hand. "I'm not scared anymore, Chris."

"About what?"

"About anything."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't have a reason to be."

"That's good, right?" I say, not sure why she doesn't have a reason to be but not wanting to break the mood.

For a long time we sit there, Jocelyn pressed up against me with the rest of the world far away.