Split (9 page)

I smooth her hair, urging it back in place. “Oh God. Please forgi—”

I hear myself. I hear those words in my voice, and I flash on our future:

At her door, I will leave a basket brimming with a pound of coffee, her favorite raw sugar, and chocolate. I’ll attach a note:
Missing a fix? I’m missing you.
I will surprise her in chemistry, giving her my lab results so she can get that A her father keeps begging her for. Every day, I’ll tape a KitKat to her locker until she decides not to throw it away; she’ll rip open the crinkling wrapper and give in to her habit. After school, I’ll wait at her car with the photo I took last year of her at the lake. In it, she is laughing as the surf crashes against the cement blocks. It’s a shot she has always wanted. When she accepts it, I’ll promise never to hurt her again, and she’ll promise she will leave me if I do
.

But then she won’t. Not when I demand that she never speak to Edward again, not when I go ahead and flirt hard and deep with Marisa in front of her face, just to test her. Not even when I cut off her hair as punishment for talking to Edward when they run into each other at the lockers—the scissors will rasp against her hair, and she’ll end up thanking me for not plunging them into her back. She won’t leave me, not after the next backdraft and the next and the next
.

It’s as if it has already happened. It
has
already happened—just not to us.

I am jolted out of the land of imagined futures when Lauren falls toward me, wrapping her arms around my neck, her forearm resting against my spine, her face against my shoulder. I start to pull back, but she hangs on. I want to gently lift her arms off me, to square her shoulders against me. But I can’t touch her.

“Jace,” she whispers. She takes in a big breath, and when she lets it out, I feel the rush of wind against my ear. “I shouldn’t have. Not with Edward.”

I pull out of her grasp. I turn, sitting down on the cement. My back presses against the cold bricks. Bits of uneven mortar prick my skin through my shirt. I lean my elbows against my knees and fold my arms into a bridge, resting my forehead on it.

“I’m sorry.”

But she’s the one who says it.

I want to shred my own skin, yank every thread of DNA out, and give it to her as an offering. But would that be enough? Is there any way I can fix this? I shouldn’t even apologize, since that will shove the burden of forgiveness onto her. Who the hell am I to ask for her forgiveness? Who the hell am I to twist her into someone who could forgive the unforgivable? I know exactly who I can turn her into.

“Please,” she says, and touches my arm.

I look up.

She has one hand clamped over her face. “Please take me home. I don’t want to get on the train. I took the train in.”

Her face contorts, and tears squeeze out of her closed eyes.

I stand up and offer her my hand. I drive her home in total silence except for her sobbing. The lights of Chicago tick by us.

Standing in Christian’s apartment, I can hear the thunder cracking the sky open and the onslaught of rain. The window has fogged completely, making the air inside the tiny apartment feel even closer. Car or no car, I can’t stay in this place one second longer. I hurry out the door and race down the steps.

Outside, the rain drenches me. Thick drops penetrate my cotton shirt and soak my skin. I walk to the edge of the pool and watch the water undulate under the force of the storm.

The rain mutates into hail, and little balls of ice race past me. Some slam against my face and skull. The hail graduates from gumball-sized balls to full-fledged icy golf balls. I watch them ricochet off the cement and plummet into the pool. The wind kicks up, sending my hair over my eyes. Hail hammers my shoulders, arms, hands. One crashes into my neck, bouncing off my vertebrae. The cold makes me flinch.

I stand there, taking it, until the hail peters out and finally stops. The pool settles and slowly stills. I half hope I have bruises to show from this ersatz beating, but I doubt it. What do I owe Lauren?

I head back inside, climb the stairs, walk over to the computer, and flip the monitor back on. It buzzes and clicks before it shows me the white screen. I open Lauren’s last e-mail. RE: Warrant for your arrest?

Marisa thinks I should just let it go since you’re not around. Edward, and I’m sorry to mention him to you, Edward thinks I should swear out a warrant for your arrest. Me, I just want to talk to you. Please call me.

No haughty edge, no bitchy comments, one hundred percent vulnerability. I’ve already ruined her.

My soaked hand drips water on the desk. I try to dry my hands off on my jeans, but they’re too wet. I use the couch. Then I violate my self-imposed no-contact order, bend my fingers to the keys, and type.

The instant you sign your name on the complaint, I will love you more than I ever have. Show some self-respect, girl.

I grab the mouse and push my cursor over to the Send button, where it hovers. I read the message over and stare at the word
love
. Shouldn’t there be an unbreachable chasm between love and hitting someone?

I never even asked her if she was all right. I never spoke to her again.

When she left, she said, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

I said nothing and stared straight ahead.

The cursor blinks. I press Delete and, character by character, my message disappears. Before I can think myself out of it, I type in two words and send the message.

Do it.

When Christian comes home that night, I can feel him watching me while I’m flat on my back on the pull-out; I’m sure it looks like I’m staring at white pimples on the textured ceiling. He takes off his shoes, watching me. He goes into the bedroom, and his keys clatter against the bureau. When he comes back, he resumes the vigil.

“Hey,” he says.

“.”

Even from the corner of my eye, I see him edging closer and examining me.

His eyes stop at my shoes, still on. “Are you all right?”

“.”

“Do you want to talk?”

“.”

Yeah, can’t you tell?

He kneels at the foot of my bed, unties my shoes, and pulls them off my feet.

“Thanks,” I finally manage to get out.

He sits next to me for half a second before jumping back up. “It’s wet. You’re wet.”

There’s a long pause while I muster up a response. “Sorry.”

“I just meant … Why don’t you take the bed tonight?”

“No.”

I want to tell him that he shouldn’t have to sleep in the swamp I’ve created, but that’s all that comes out. Right now, anything else just feels like an effort.

“I’m all right,” I say.

“You’re a liar.”

I roll over and push my face into the mattress while the tears tide in.

He sits back on the bed and puts his hand on my shoulder. He stays with me until I’m done. It takes a long time, but he never complains, never tries to slow me with questions or banal comforts; he never takes his hand off.

chapter 13

i
t’s lunch period
, and I coaxed Tom to come shoot with me to try to make up for the other week. We’re just dribbling, having fun with ridiculous moves, when Caitlyn, Eric, and Heather show up. Caitlyn waves, and Eric comes up to us. He joins us, passing the ball, chipping it into the air. His lobs are slightly off the mark and have too much spin on them for a friendly shot, making them hard to handle; he’s trying to make me look bad in front of our guests. He shoots one at me that I bumble a little. He laughs, but I get it off to Tom, just not with as much control as I’d like. Tom shanks it completely. It ends up in Caitlyn’s hands.

Caitlyn and Heather both snicker.

“Great shot,” says Heather.

“Oh, come on,” says Caitlyn. “He’s just trying to include us, aren’t you, Tommy? Now that you’ve been demoted to second string, you’re looking for someone at your level?”

Eric and Heather laugh. Maybe it’s because I’m the one who dragged Tom out here, or maybe it’s because I’m the one who replaced him, but I’m trying to figure out how not to pop Caitlyn in the mouth. She looks over at me and sees my cold expression.

“Oh, Tom,” she says, “I’m just teasing you. Just flirting a little.”

Lauren and Caitlyn are so similar. Both erupt with the same catty remarks and cover with a smile. I used to be Eric, laughing at all her jokes. Now, Tom isn’t the stupidest guy or anything, but it takes someone pretty nimble to keep up with Caitlyn. Practice with Lauren has trained me well.

“Tom can’t flirt at your level,” I say, and Tom’s chin hangs even lower. “He needs more than a high school girl who thinks that a WELCOME sign on her ass is an effective come-hither.”

Tom grins at me, and I lift my eyebrows back. After a pause, Eric and Heather crack up. Caitlyn saunters over to me, lifting her sunglasses up. She stops in front of me and rolls her shoulders back. Stretched tighter, her T-shirt buckles into little ripples between her breasts.

“Oh, so you’re still thinking about my pants?” she says. “Thinking of a way to get in them?”

She has probably seen me watching her a little too often since I started here. Sure, she’s hot and popular, but there’s something else: if you try to give her any shit, you can be pretty sure she’s going to fling it back in your face. And that’s something I can’t resist: unflappable, unbreakable women.

“Is it keeping you up at night? Keeping your lonely hands busy?” Caitlyn says.

In some relationships, there’s a moment where you’ve gotta decide whether you’re going to dig deep into trench warfare or flip the switch and become something else, something hotter.

“Whether or not I get in your pants, if I hang out with you, I’m getting fucked, aren’t I?”

She doesn’t get embarrassed, doesn’t hesitate; she just flings it back at me.

“Take me out, Jace,” she says. “Let’s see what happens.”

“Hey,” Eric calls. “Are we going to stand around and chat?”

Eric’s face is blanched white, and he’s holding his breath. I toss the ball to him before Caitlyn and I walk off the field together.

The movie-popcorn smell is thick in Caitlyn’s car when we drive up into the mountains and find a place to park. Caitlyn has her mom’s SUV, and I’m guessing the seats fold down. She puts the car in park and turns the engine off, letting the battery run the radio. I think about Lauren and how I had to climb over the gear shift, couldn’t get over it fast enough for her.

Caitlyn unclicks her seat belt and leans in. She kisses me, her lips slippery with too much lip gloss. I taste an unfamiliar peachy flavor that makes me pull back. I catch sight of her red hair, and everything’s wrong.

Where are the cat-night eyes? Where’s that voice of Lauren’s that can go from a warm purr to cold steel in a fraction of a second? Where are the stories she would tell me about her mother’s drinking? I want to hear again about the time her mother went on a bender and forgot an eight-year-old Lauren in a grocery store; how Lauren stayed in canned goods, reading labels; how she still hates Bush Beans cans. And I want her to pull a jar of body chocolate out of her purse, like she did that night, and we both escaped into each other’s skin.

But I’m here staring at Caitlyn and feeling like a jerk. No one wants to be a replacement. No one deserves it, not even Caitlyn.

She leans in farther and starts nibbling on my ear. “I just want to be clear about something … What I said about, you know … about going all the way … It was for show. I just don’t want you to expect anything—well, everything.”

Going all the way?
Who says that, except for a … virgin. Oh. My. God.

Caitlyn’s like a Lauren knock-off. Lauren wasn’t popular because she worked at it, made bitchy statements that she couldn’t live up to; she was popular because she got off on power, on twisting the knife. And I loved that about her, how she would go for what she wanted without permission, how she would never back down, never take any shit. Until me. Caitlyn would fold the second I raised my voice.

Even if Caitlyn was as tough as Lauren, even if she was a girl I could date without breaking or without her breaking me, taking her out isn’t going to make me forget about Lauren.

“You know what,” I say, pulling all the way back, “let’s just … not hook up. You don’t really want to be up here with me, anyway. This is more about Eric than me.”

Her mouth pops open in surprise; I’ve divined her master plan. She hides her face in her hands, but even in the dark, I see her neck going red.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m thinking about someone else, too. Don’t be embarrassed.”

She drops her hands into her lap. “So, you don’t want to even … kiss or anything?”

“We could just hang out. That will keep Eric’s interest, all right?”

“On one condition,” she says. “Tell me who I’m a substitute for?”

“An ex,” I say. “Something that is over.”

“For something that’s over, you can’t seem to end it,” she says, and giggles.

I wonder how rude it would be to hike home.

chapter 14

“l
ike this?”
I ask Mirriam, as I whip the egg whites. I have the bowl tucked under my arm and resting against my hip, the way Samantha does it in reruns of
Bewitched
.

“Sure, you can do it like that,” she says.

“No, really, how?”

“Put it down.” She takes the whisk and mixes a different way—more up and down than circular. Then she turns the bowl around on the counter with her other hand. “This might be faster.”

She asks me about school, and I tell her that Tom seems okay, that he’s actually teaching me to play chess, which makes us both laugh.

I glance at the clock. “We won’t be done before Christian gets here.”

“That’s okay.” She takes over, mixing everything together and then pouring the pancakes on the skillet. “Why don’t you get started on your homework?”

I tell her I wouldn’t leave her to finish all the work, but I have a paper due. When she asks on what, I give her a quick rundown: “interdisciplinary” paper, combining history with Tim O’Brien’s
The Things They Carried
. She talks about the benefits of an interdisciplinary education, and I think about the benefits of an A.

While she goes on, she grabs a measuring cup and drops measured batter onto the skillet. I watch her doing it without thinking.

“Mirriam?”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking about Thanksgiving dinner.” I hesitate. “Christian said you and your family are close. Are you going out to see them? Or …”

“My parents are abroad this year, and we’re doing a big reunion for Christmas, so I’ll be around. Why?”

“I kind of want to make it a big deal because Christian and I are together again for the holidays. So I was wondering if you could teach me how to cook a turkey.”

“Well, sure, Jace.” She smiles like a teacher does when you turn in your assignment early, all mushy-eyed and proud.

I frown and walk to the computer. Except for moments when Mirriam goes into her teacher-mode or, even worse, her must-rescue-the-broken-kid mode, she’s okay. In fact, she has been making me feel more at home than Christian sometimes.

Before I start my paper, I do my daily Mom e-mail check, hoping I won’t see a reply from Lauren. I sigh in relief. Only one from Mom. I open it up and read it. In the four and a half weeks since I’ve been here, her e-mails have been getting progressively shorter.

They went from this:

Things are good here. I’m still saving up the money you boys are sending me. What does Christian say about me coming out? Tell him to write me. What’s your new school like? How’s the soccer team?

To :

I can’t wait to see you both. What is the news on Christian these days? Is he seeing anyone? Looking forward to Thanksgiving.

To :

I’m fine. Don’t worry.

She used to get quieter when my dad was gearing up for a big one. She never spoke that much anyway, but when she sensed my father’s stress, our dialogue would turn into me monologuing, just to fill the room, just to see if I could eke a smile out of her.

I look at her last e-mail:
Don’t worry
. I know time is running out. His fuse must be burning up a little more each day. I tell myself her reticence is just due to the natural half-life of e-mails. After all, my e-mails have been getting shorter, too. No more long descriptions about the people I’m meeting and how everything is great out here and how Christian and I have hit it off since day one. I lie because I don’t want her to worry either.

The door behind me clicks, the bolt sliding out of the way.

“Hi, Christian,” I say, not taking my eyes from the screen, as if I could will her words to multiply.

Mirriam comes out of the kitchen, and they kiss their hellos while I consider writing my mom the longest e-mail ever, just to test my half-life theory.

“Are you okay, love?” she asks.

I turn and look. She still has her arms around him, and his face is tight and pale.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice unusually low. He clears his throat.

“Are you on ER rotation? Bad day?”

He pulls back from her, but her arms just stretch longer. He glances at me.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Mirriam,” I say, “the food.”

“Oh, right.” She lets go of him and races into the kitchen.

He takes off his jacket and hangs it. Then he walks over to me. I want to ask him what happened, but I feel him reading the screen, her four-word reply.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Is that Mom’s e-mail? Short.”

I resist glaring at him.

“How often are you guys e-mailing?” he asks.

“Every day. I want to hear from her every day.”

His jaw clenches, and his voice hardens with scorn. “You’re still keeping tabs on her?”

“Yes. You have a problem with that?”

He shakes his head. “It’s your life. Waste it how you want. Are we having pancakes?”

I click the window closed and slam my palm against the monitor button to turn it off. I stare at the dark screen and breathe. In, hold, out.
Manage your anger, don’t let it manage you
, the blond woman with the horse teeth said.

“Maybe you should just tell me what I did,” I say.

He walks into the kitchen, brings out plates, and puts them down gently. Even the plates don’t get rough treatment.

He turns to me. “It’s not you. I treated a girl today. She was tight-lipped and practiced in stonewalling.”

Mirriam walks in with a platter of pancakes. She slows down and listens.

“I called the police, a social worker, but her mom took her home,” he says.

“I’m sorry, love.” She grabs his hand. He doesn’t close his fingers around hers.

Christian says nothing. Mirriam says nothing. I say nothing. I would suggest lighting a candle, but it would sound flip, and I don’t mean it that way.

“Is she going to be all right?” Mirriam asks finally. “I mean, physically.”

“She ought to be.”

“Then you’ve done all you can,” Mirriam says.

Christian grunts. “Sure, okay,” he says, picking up my phrase.

We sit down in silence, and Mirriam fills our plates with pancakes from the platter. Christian is only at the table for a couple of minutes. He stares at the pancakes and pokes one with his fork, leaving four dents. He says he’s sorry we went to the trouble, but he isn’t hungry. He has a lot of work to do and should study.

“Christian?” I say. “Do you want company? I have a paper to write.”

“No thanks.”

Mirriam glances at me before she gives it her best shot.

“Christian,” she says, and gives a half laugh. “Remember how you keep telling me that I need to develop professional distance? It’s okay if you can’t rescue everyone either.”

He just shakes his head.

“Maybe one is enough,” I say.

He looks at me, confused.

“I mean, you know.” I touch my chest and shrug.

For the first time since he came home, he looks me in the eye.

“Yeah?” he asks, his voice rough.

I contemplate life on the street. “Yeah.”

He gives me a little nod, and I can practically see his shoulders slide down. Somehow, his eyes look less hollowed out. He leans over and kisses Mirriam on the top of her head.

She grips his hand, and he says, “Thanks, guys.”

He swallows audibly, and then his voice is lighter when he asks her, “Did Toad—Jace—tell you about this tradition?”

“Wait … Toad?” she asks.

“Nickname,” I say. “For family only.”

“How did you get it?”

I shrug and look at Christian. “Do you remember?”

He shakes his head.

“Me neither.”

“So,” he says, “tell her about the pancakes.”

He walks into the kitchen while I begin talking about how he taught me to flip pancakes. He comes back with the syrup and goes around the table, letting the sweetness drizzle down.