The Best I Could (32 page)

“Tansy!” my grandmother yelled. “Get back
here!”

I kept walking.

“If you take the van, I will call the
police,” she threatened.

Despite the desire to rebel, I’d been forced
to be responsible too long to change. I froze.

“Tansy,” Eli’s voice said from behind me.

Whirling, I glared at him, my gaze flicking
to the two people standing behind him in the yard. Stars shone
above us, too beautiful to witness my life. This mess.

“I’m not a she. I’m Tansy. I’m your sister,”
I stated, looking at Deena. My gaze slid to Hetty. “And your
granddaughter. I’m not a freak. I’m …” My words trailed off, stolen
by the stars.

Hetty shook her head. “I don’t know what to
do here, Tansy. What you’re doing isn’t safe.”

Eli stepped into my line of vision, his back
to my grandmother, his gaze on my face. “I know some people you can
talk to.”

Deena laughed. “My sister, the basket case.
How much more messed up can my family get?”

His jaw clenching and unclenching, Eli turned
to look at her. “Therapy isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Everyone
deals with things differently. If Tansy needs to be ashamed, then I
do, too. I’ve been seeing therapists on and off since I was eight
years old.”

Hetty and Deena stilled, their surprised eyes
on Eli.

“My mother is a mental patient,” he added,
“and despite everything I have against her, I have never looked
down on her for her medical issues. I’m more disappointed in the
help she refuses to get. The things she refuses to do to get
better. You want your chance to be a family after everything that
happened to you? Start with each other.”

Silence filled the yard.

It was Hetty who broke it. “Tansy,” she ran
her hands over her face, “talk to me.”

My gaze rose, my heart sinking. “I want to
move out,” I revealed. “Work, find a place to stay, and maybe look
into the whole college thing. See about taking the SAT or ACT. I
need to start over.”

Deena’s face paled. “You want to leave?”

I smiled at her, begging her to understand.
“I want to see what I could do now on my own. Without Dad. I
wouldn’t be leaving you, Deena. I’m always here. The same way Jet
is, even though I know it doesn’t feel like it. You’ll have Nana
and the boxing. The damn cats, too.” I laughed, and then sobered.
“I just feel like my skin is too tight. Like I should be doing
something. Finding out where I’m supposed to be and what I’m
supposed to do.”

Hetty stepped toward me. “We need to talk
about this, Tansy.” She threw Eli a look. “Amongst family. If
you’re cutting, moving won’t help. There won’t be anyone to monitor
you.”

My eyes pleaded with her. “I can do this,
Nana. I’m not saying right away. I have to finish the garden for
Mr. Lockston, the garden here, and I need steady work first. A good
plan set in place.”

“There are programs she can attend.
Outpatient,” Eli inserted.

Startled, I glanced at him. “What?”

“For the cutting. I checked into some after
leaving the gym today.”

With furrowed brows and baffled eyes, Hetty
asked, “What are you to Tansy, Eli?”

His gaze locked with mine. “That’s up to your
granddaughter.”

Headlights flashed, and a car—a Camaro—roared
into the yard, the disturbance breaking the building tension.

Eli groaned.

A door slammed. “Shit, Eli! Could you please
quit jacking my car!” Jonathan stomped toward us into the glare of
the headlights.

Eli crossed his arms, his face even. “Quit
leaving the keys in the ignition.”

Deena’s chin jutted out. “Well, isn’t this
nice? We’re having a,” air quotes, “crazy reunion.”

Jonathan blinked. Newcomer or not, he had to
know by now that when Deena’s tone hit a sarcastic high, shit was
about to hit the fan. “Crazy?” He practically whispered it.

Humiliation swept through me.

Throwing a damning look at all of us, Hetty
smoothed her hands down her clothes and took a deep breath. “Look,
nobody is crazy here. Misplaced maybe, but not crazy.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “When am I going to
learn to just walk away? Let Eli do his thing whether it gets him
in trouble or not.” His gaze flashed from face to face. “And here
all I wanted was my car.”

Something about Hetty’s words got to me.
“Misplaced?”

Eli’s lips twitched. “Like we’re all a set of
keys someone lost. I kind of like that analogy.”

Hetty massaged her neck. “It’s been my goal
in life to please you, Eli.”

He laughed. “I see where your granddaughters
get their spunk from.”

Shoulders slumping, Jonathan glanced at his
car, and then at us. “What did I miss?”

“Which part?’ Deena asked. “Tansy cutting
herself or the fact that she wants to leave me.”

Even with the Camaro engine running,
Jonathan’s gasp was audible in the night.

With the cloying summer air, the breeze full
of heat, cement, animal, and flowers, it was already hard to
breath, but Deena’s words made it harder. A vice gripped my chest,
choking me. The cutting exposure was nothing compared to the pain I
heard in her voice.

“I’m not leaving you, Deena.” I stepped
toward her.

She stepped back. “Like Jet? What a load of
bull! Once he left for college, he didn’t even come to visit. Not
until Dad went into the hospital.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m not Jet.
You know that, Deena.”

“I don’t know anything anymore.”

Her words were a slap in the face. Direct.
True. There. Out in the open and more real than anything else she
could have said. Our lives after Mom’s death had become a game
where we spent every day trying to pretend we were okay. Every day
forgetting what was real and wishing for what wasn’t. That fine
line was gone now and everything was running together. I may have
been the consistent sibling, the one who stayed, but I was also the
one who had changed the most. Jet was still as wishy-washy as he’d
always been.

Suddenly, despite everyone around us, it was
just me and Deena, the two of us watching each other.

“I think I forgot who I was,” I admitted,
“and it’s time I figure out exactly who that is.”

She hugged herself. “You can’t do that
here?”

This time, when I stepped toward her, she
didn’t move away. “Our problems became bigger than us, Deena. They
swallowed us whole and spat us back out all chewed up. But this
world is about more than just our problems. The world is bigger
than that. I know what it feels like, looking at everyone and
everything around you and not knowing what or who they are anymore.
Before Mom died, we were so certain about us and our family. Now …
that’s why I did it, I think. It’s like I want to cut away the
parts of me I’m not sure of and leave behind the parts I’m positive
of.”

Deena’s gaze dropped to my legs. “You can’t
do that, Tansy.”

“I know.”

“We’re never going home again, are we?” she
whispered.

“No,” I whispered back.

A tear slid down her cheek, her arms
tightening around herself. “Please don’t keep hurting
yourself.”

The wind blew, tugging at my hair and sucking
the cool wetness off of my cheeks. Tears. “I’m going to try.”

Our gazes met, and then for the first time in
years, she threw herself at me, her spindly arms circling my back,
hugging me.

My arms remained at my sides, my eyes
widening. In our family, we didn’t hug.

Something in me exploded, a wall in my heart
coming down.

Slowly and carefully, I returned the hug, my
hands patting her back awkwardly. She shook in my embrace.

“What do you do,” she whispered, “when you
don’t have parents to make proud?”

I froze, my hand against her back. A dozen
sentences pressed against my lips but only one came out. “You make
yourself proud,” I breathed into her ear. “You fail yourself, too,
because I think failing isn’t as bad as everyone thinks it is. No
one likes to do it, but when you hit rock bottom, at least you have
something to push yourself off of. Plus, you can’t be afraid of
failing when you’ve already done it.”

“Have you,” she pulled back far enough to
peer up at me, “failed?’

“Yeah,” I answered slowly. “I’ve failed a
shit ton, and now I’m ready to start climbing.”

Hetty cleared her throat. “Maybe it’s changed
since I got old, but isn’t there something teenagers like to do
other than socialize in my yard on a summer night?”

Deena and I looked at each other, and then
glanced at Nana.

Hetty nodded at Eli and Jonathan. “There’s
been a lot of revelations tonight. Maybe we should take some time
and let them sink in.”

Eli lifted a brow, his lips curling up. “I’m
starving.”

Jonathan groaned and rubbed
his eyes. “Shit. Whatever, but if we’re going somewhere,
I’m
driving.”

We risked a look at Hetty.

She shook her head, a smile fighting the
stern wrinkles on her face. “Go,” she ordered, nodding at Deena and
me before glancing at the sky. “Lord, help me be strong enough to
survive this.” Her gaze fell. “You have enough money?” she asked
us.

“Got it covered,” Eli answered.

She looked at me. “We’re not done, you know
that, right?”

I nodded.

Waving at the cars, she sighed heavily.
“Don’t be too late, leave any cell phone numbers you have with me,
and be young.”

Deena’s face transformed, her braces flashing
when she smiled. It wowed me, and I realized just how beautiful my
sister was, how enchanting she was going to be someday.

Surprises never ceased.

Leaving me, Deena hugged Hetty.

Our grandmother reacted the same way I did,
uncertain at first, before her arms fell around her
granddaughter.

“Tansy?” Hetty asked.

I walked into the hug, letting myself be a
part of them. This place, this family, wasn’t what Deena or I would
have asked for, but it was the one handed to us. Eli and Jonathan
included.

It was time to do more than survive. It was
time to live.

Eli

Summer was my favorite time of the year. Hot
country roads at night, dust flying. Stars stretching out forever
on a black canvas sky. Lights flashing in the city. Hung over
evenings spent eating cold pizza straight out of the refrigerator
because you’d been too fucked up from the night before to do
anything the next. Laughing people inside of bouncing clubs. Living
life at its fullest one steaming day at a time.

Tonight, it was about the country roads,
windows down, and people who had been brought together by some
weird twist of fate.

Wind blew against dark trees, shaking them,
making the leaves laugh at us.

“Faster!” Deena shouted, her head out the
window.

We were on a long stretch of dirt road, the
length of it empty.

Jonathan stepped on the gas, flooring it
before easing off of the pedal.

“That was a total cop out! You can do better
than that!” Deena cried.

“I’m not the adrenaline junkie in the
family,” Jonathan yelled over the wind, throwing me a look.

Tonight would have been the perfect night to
drive my motorcycle. The perfect night to make out with the wind,
nothing between me and flying. If it was here. Instead, Pops had
recently informed me it was being stored at his house in the city,
a modest two-level in the Atlanta suburbs.

“Find food!” I called out.

Pulling down the mirror on the passenger
side, I stared into the back seat at Tansy.

Wind rushed into her hair, spiking it,
causing her large T-shirt to billow out around her. Shadows invaded
her face, but even in the dark, I caught her smile, the pure joy
gazing out over the fields and star-filled skies gave her. Despite
her demons and the noise in her head this quiet town had forced her
to listen to, she was made for the country. For the wilderness. For
the ends of the earth even. Maybe, hopefully, she was made for the
sea, too.

Jonathan pulled off onto a side road, and
street lights flashed over us. A train whistle screeched, the sound
of a locomotive rumbling over old tracks. A light glared, and the
train chugged past, the sides of the metal beast running alongside
the bumpy blacktop we were on.

Deena screamed and fist pumped the night,
hair blowing wildly. “It could be going anywhere!” she
hollered.

“Probably just moving something down the
line,” Jonathan replied.

Deena pulled her head into the car. “Don’t
spoil it, you ape!”

Tansy leaned forward in her seat, her head
coming to rest on the door near my head, her breath raising the
hairs on my neck. “It’s fun, isn’t it?” she asked me. “Being with
my sister reminds me of what it was like before liking boys and
wanting to fit in made socializing weird.”

“It gets weirder for boys faster,” I teased,
grinning. “Do you have a crush on someone? Is it making things
weird? Because if I ever meet him, I’m going to tell him how hard
you—”

Reaching between the seats, she pinched me.
“Neanderthal.”

“We’ve got two choices,” Jonathan said,
slowing the car. “Pizza or burgers?”

Two buildings flanked the road, their neon
signs flashing. I’d never been on this side of town, the back side,
next to nowhere.

Deena perked up. “Burgers. I want fries.”

Jonathan pulled into one of the parking lots.
Most of the spaces were taken, and in the end, he took a corner
spot by the road.

The smell of grease and too much perfume
permeated the space when we walked in. Dim, stained glass lights
hung over wooden tables with orange faux leather booth seats. Pop
music played overhead, and muted TVs mounted from the walls flashed
news and ESPN channels.

Every table except two were taken.

A harried hostess ushered us to an empty
booth near the window, slapping menus down in front of us. “Our ice
cream machine is down, so if you’re looking for a frozen treat,
you’re out of luck. Anything else, your server can help you
with.”