Swimming Through Clouds (A YA Contemporary Novel) (28 page)

The word
battle
reminds me of a dream I had last night. Jess walked the
tightrope above Dad’s jailhouse courtyard, and when Dad recognized his son’s
legs and arms balancing perfectly above the prison walls, angry snakes spewed
from Dad’s mouth, wrapping around and amputating Jess’s arms and
legs—irreparable, bloody limbs spread around like uprooted trees after a
hurricane. The image disturbs more than my vision. I don’t hear Lagan’s voice
until he puts his hand on my chin, lifts my head, and wipes his fingertips
across my dripping cheeks.

“Talia? Where are you? Did you even hear...? Forget it.
Let’s get outta here.”

“I’m sorry.” I’m back. “Done?”

“Yes.” Lagan places some Kleenex in my hands.  

I fish my shades from my purse to cover up. Rani doesn’t
budge from her seat, her eyes glued to textbook, when Lagan says, “Hey, I
wrapped up my case and am calling it a day.”

“
Manana
,
Cuz
,”
Rani says without looking up.

“
Laters
.” And with that, Lagan
pushes the bell-sounding door open and waits for me to pass through first.

The afternoon sun greets me like a flashlight looking for a
dropped diamond. Time to take off the shades.

 
On your heart, Talia. Part the curtains
on your heart and let Lagan see you. It’s time to tell him the truth. The whole
truth.
The gardener speaks
clearly through the sun, and I know that it’s now or never. Never was an option
yesterday.  

The seals on my leaky eyes keep lifting. Lagan leads me a
few blocks down to the lake, toward Buckingham Fountain, and it’s crying upside
down. A visual of my life, only the opposite reflection. An upside down well,
once deep and dark, I have no choice but to leave my hiding place. The
impending farewell stunts my speech, and I can’t help but turn and soak Lagan’s
shoulder. So much lies behind. And so much ahead. Only a day away.

When my breathing steadies, I start with one word: “Jesse.”
His name sputters from my croaking throat.

“Yes?” Lagan squeezes my hand gently.

“I’m scared.”

As Lagan wraps his arm around me and leads me, my fingers
follow behind him along his belt line and my thumb slips through a loop.
Oh,
to hold on just a little longer.
Linked
at the hips, we move clumsily over to a bench opposite the fountain where Lake
Michigan lies to our right. Traffic blurs by on Lakeshore Drive, the world
going nowhere fast.

Lagan nods and sighs as I detail yesterday’s conversation,
my fears, and my nightmares. Sometimes he looks off to the lake, shakes his
head, and turns back to hear more. Other times, he rubs my cupped hands,
failing to arrest the shaking. The tremble spills, from my insides out, as I
outline truth after truth of Dad’s violent past and the memories that frame my
life of terror. That Jess, Mom, and I have faced our entire lives. I say too
much.

I know this when Lagan lets go of my hands. He begins to
punch his left hand with his right, attempting to injure an enemy just out of
his grasp. I recognize the frustration in his repetitive pounding. Jess and I
have spent our entire lives swinging at invisible adversaries in our dreams.
Neither of us has ever dared to fight the real evil while awake. Until now.
Until today.

I’m awake now. And I have no choice but to fight for our
flight.

“And that’s why we have to leave. Dad has to believe that
we’re—” And I can’t say the word. Because I know the word implies death
to a lot more than just me. It’s my time to give Lagan a little, square yellow
paper. The words
The End
stare up at me from the Post-it note I pull out from my
back pocket. I hand it over, because I have no choice.

“I always knew it would be hard...” Lagan’s words trail off
as the note sits on his palm like a weight that cannot be lifted.

“I always knew it couldn’t last...” I say things I thought
from the beginning. Just never wanted to face.

“I always knew it would end.” Lagan stabs me with this one.
“I just never knew it would end like this.”

I rise and walk over to the edge of the fountain. The spray
mixes with my tears, and I know nothing will ever wash the brief time I had
with Lagan from my memory. Like days with Mom, I will file away the pictures
and pull them out when I want to remember. I’m forcing myself to move to the
other side of
later
when Lagan’s arms wrap around my waist from behind to bring
me back to
now
.

“Have you thought about calling the police?” Lagan asks the
question Jesse and I answered years ago.

The police are not on our side. Dad has too many cop
friends. My silence answers for me. So Lagan reels off a few more
impossibles
. Because that’s all we have left now. The
impossible. He just hasn’t accepted it yet.

“There has to be a reason why he never just got rid of you
and Jesse.” Lagan throws in another line. “Why would any father who hates
parenting that much hold on to his kids? Some things just don’t add up.”

“He’s mentioned the word
debt
, but I never got the whole story. Not
like I could outright ask him. Whatever it is or whoever he owes, it has to be
bad enough that he threw a guy out of our house once over it. I don’t know,
Lagan...” Because I don’t. “I just know I can’t, we can’t, live like this
anymore. You don’t understand.” I hate to say the words. Because more than
anything I need Lagan to just understand. There is no other way.

“Sure. I don’t get everything, but I can’t just sit back and
watch you disappear. Not like this.”

“LIG.” It’s my turn to give Lagan an acronym to face life
with.

“LIG?” Lagan turns my shoulders to face him, and I can feel
his hands move to my back and link like cuffs.

“Let it go.” I look into those dark brown eyes, and I’m
swimming. He in my pools. Me in his. “Or LMG—Let me go.”

Like a lifeguard who thinks he can rescue the Titanic, Lagan
shakes his head no. “No. Not this time. Not when we’ve come so far. Not when I
know what I know. Not now, when I know how much I love you.”

“And that’s why you have to let me go.” I stand my ground,
even as the words I’ve never heard from a boy stream into my heart into my
vault for safekeeping. I’ll take them and keep them forever. He loves me.
He
loves me.

Lagan shakes his head more and lets go of me this time. “It
won’t work.
Jesse’ll
get caught. You can’t just set a
house on fire and get away with it. Police investigate that kind of stuff.
They’ll find out it was arson. And when they don’t find any bodies in the
house, your dad will know you’re both alive. You won’t have enough time to run
to the next state, let alone another country. And then Jesse will be in jail.
How does that make any sense?”

“You have a point.” Several, in fact, that I had never
thought about.

“What about India? You and Jess could leave on a flight
tonight. I’ll borrow money from my parents. And you can search for your
grandparents.”

“Any plan where Dad can find us was crossed out already.” I
guess I have to spell it out.

“There are things for that.” That math brain of his refuses
to accept that this is not a simple equation. Nothing adds up and no solution
exists.

“Like what? And don’t say magic shows where the girl in the
box is first sawed in half and then she disappears.” I’m through with bleeding.
Fire woos me like a friend who promises freedom from Alcatraz, and I’m
following. Whether Lagan approves or not.

“Changing identities. Witness protection programs. Home for
abused...” Suddenly feeling ashamed at hearing the word spoken out loud about
me for the first time, I turn away, but Lagan pulls me close. He’s grasping at
me like one trying to save water in his hands, aware that even as he holds me
tightly, I’m slipping away. And he can’t save me.

“How would I find this sort of place, if it existed? How
would they keep Dad from finding me and taking me back? And would Jesse be able
to stay with me? That’s the only condition I would even consider.” That’s the
most I’ve ever thought out loud. I just want to be far away from Dad. That’s
the bottom line.

“You have to tell the truth. That he hurts you. They’ll let
you in then. They can’t refuse you.” Lagan is not giving up. “It would just be
for a little while, until they can help you find a safe way to come back...”

To you.
That’s what you want, isn’t it? Of
course, that’s what I want too, but I accept that no matter what happens
tomorrow, I’m leaving and probably never coming back. Maybe Lagan doesn’t have
to know that. Maybe it’s easier this way.

“Okay.”
Who said that?
Did I just have my first out of body...?

“Really?” Lagan exhales a nervous chuckle. “You’re considering
it? You’re willing to find another way?”

“It’s worth a shot, right?” I hope. “Let’s find a place. A
homeless shelter or something like that where they take cases like me. And
Jesse. And if they have some way of hiding us. Then, maybe, someday...”

“For now, I’ll know you’re safe. And that’s what I want most
of all.” Lagan pulls out his iPhone and begins to Google options.

I find my way back to the park bench as my mind goes back
and forth. Where would Jesse and I run to, anyway? Taking nothing with us means
I can’t touch the account my checks get deposited in either. How far will we
get without money or IDs? How long before someone reports us as runaways and
tries to reunite us with Dad? Maybe Lagan is onto something. A way for us to
leave without Dad being able to trace us. We could try it out. Use fake names.
Test out a shelter. Let some time pass. Any night of sleep under a roof where
Dad does not sleep sounds heavenly, really.

“I think I found one. Or two. Actually, there are a bunch.
But this one sounds promising. The thing is, Talia, and I know you do not want
to hear this, but if, for just a little while, you went to a women’s shelter
and let Jesse go to a men’s shelter, you’d throw off your dad. He’s expecting
to find you together. What if you separated, just for a little while? I think
it only makes sense.”

“Jess will never go for it.” And neither will I, for that
matter.

“But if it means you’re really free of your Dad for sure,
wouldn’t that make a difference? Actually, from what I can tell so far, you
might not have a choice.”

I know he’s right. “I just don’t know how I’ll convince
Jesse.”

“Let me do it.” Lagan wants to play knight all day long.
“I’ll talk to him. And if you’re already safe at a women’s shelter, he won’t
have a choice, and he’ll agree to camp out until it’s safe—safer. You
know what I mean.”

“Do you think they’ll let me keep in touch with Jess? Call
him? Check on him? See him once in a while?”

“I’m sure they decide things like that on case-by-case
basis. There are probably different rules at different places, too. I don’t
know why they wouldn’t at least let you make calls to another shelter,” Lagan
says.

After making some phone calls, finding some shelters with no
empty beds and others requiring police reports, Lagan finds one that allows
anonymous entry upon completion of an interview process. Seems like they have a
different approach.

“Yes, I think I understand.” Lagan is verifying what he read
online. “So you’re saying that as long as the shelter personnel can determine
that she’s not trying to contact her abuser, they don’t see a problem with her
calling her brother. Great. Nope. That answers my question. See
you...maybe...today? Okay. I’ll tell her to stop by today before eight.”

“Today?” Everything’s happening so fast.

Lagan plops down on the bench next to me and puts his arm
around my shoulder. “She said if you want to come by and talk informally to see
if you feel comfortable, you could even show up at the head office today, tell
the registry that you’re living in an abused situation, and they’ll begin the
interview process. The main condition they require is all new residents must
sign a contract to protect you and the other women, in which you agree never to
disclose the location of the actual shelter.”  

Listening to the details unravel breathes life into the
idea. This is quickly becoming much more than just an idea.
Am
I really doing this?
“Are we
doing this?”

“Do you have any reason not to? And, Talia...” Lagan holds
my face in his hands. “Whatever Jesse says, whether he agrees or not, promise
me you won’t go back. Ever. You have to promise me that you will never go back
to your dad or that house.”

I gulp. Because I have never so happily agreed to something
my whole life. “I promise.” A tear slips down my cheek into his palm. “Jesse,
too. Make Jesse promise.”

“I’ll try. And I’ll show him the site on my phone where
you’ll be. Assure him he can talk to you. Heck, I’ll have him call over there
so he can hear it from you himself. It’s
gonna
work
out. I really believe it’s all
gonna
work out.” With
a lifting scoop, Lagan picks me off the cement, and I squeal with hope I’ve
never tasted before.